Sequel to "The Witch of Wilson's Pass"
CHAPTER ONE
The year had been 1855 according to the
mortals, yet for her, there was no year. No time, and almost no space.
She fled her homeland- an oddity in itself,
for the whole world was her homeland, even though she had chosen to settle in
the place men had once called
Iron and men, one just as hot and stinking as the other.
Men, too, she did not like, though some said
she should, for much of their existence gave her true power. She told Kieran
one day, though, that if their existence sourced her strength, she would not
mind the weakness of merely being. They destroyed things, she told her brother passionately, and created so that they
might destroy. Where was the joy she should have felt in having dominion over
them?
She undertook to enumerate their evils:
They crashed through forests, unseeing and
unhearing of the soul-deep rhythms that beat in the hearts of truly ancient
trees. The magic of animals, too, they chained with iron bits and stirrups and
gate latches. All of them fought, shortening their all-too-mortal days with
blood and fire- wars, too, she fled from, unused to such things and disliking
them, though some named her Athena or the Morr�, in days gone past.
Intolerable, Kieran said scornfully one day
while scribing runes in the corner of an old stone building that stood
alongside the wall an ancient Roman general had built- he and she had been old,
though, when Hadrian built his fortress. Kieran’s blue eyes flashed
challengingly at her, daring her to offer up her own opinion.
What are you going to do about it, fair
sister?
Only a look had sufficed to make clear her
intentions, hazel eyes flashing pale green fora
moment. Her brother bowed his head- dearest Kieran, back still straight with
the unbendable pride of their kind. No humility in his silent agreement with
her, no leaning before the wind called her strength of will. A
mere acquiescence only, an acknowledgment that he, in her place, would do the
same thing. As a Guardian, though, he could not leave- moreover, his pride would not let him.
He did not express surprise that she, his
older sister with blood just as royal as his and pride just as unbreakable,
would leave when he could not. He knew his sister, knew that the timeless
spaces she had spent in
There are those who will think you taken
by the Wandering, you know, he
informed her as a final admonition.
I might as well leave, she told him just before her farewells to her forest
home. Why stay?
Stay for me, he requested softly. A faint blush- strange for stubborn,
inflexible Kieran- worked its way across his cheeks at the almost diffident
asking.
Brother, I am gone.
Just a whisper, and
it was so.
Now, the almost-old woman called Abigail
Gentry stood in a small clearing in the land called the Southwest of the
"Do you think they know anything?" Sgeulaiche asked, voice a sharp and discordant hissing. A
forked tongue flickered between his teeth as he spoke, and wise black eyes
probed the woman’s face for a premonition of an answer.
Abigail wearily passed her hands over her
face, though not to hide it from Sgeulaiche’s
scrutiny, and turned to gaze at the small dragon that perched atop the corral
fence, its tail entwined around the rough wooden plank of the top rail. The
dragon stared back at her, unabashed at its effrontery and unamazed
at the woman’s now-unlined and youthful skin, the clear and unclouded hazel
eyes.
"They might," Abigail said at
length, running long and slender fingers through her hair. It shook in the
breeze like a living thing, like dark mahogany, freed from the leather cord
that had imprisoned it. She watched the flickering shadows of the forest
reclaim the two riders and at length repeated, "They might."
Truly, they might well know- or at least,
suspect. Sgeulaiche echoed her thoughts with a
sardonic, "Well, you’ve most certainly let your abilities carry themselves too far this time! Suppose they tell tales?"
"Will they be any more believed than
that timberman who passed through a few days
ago?" Abigail demanded softly, glaring at the dragon.
Sgeulaiche’s laughter was a sibilant hiss. "I believe that,
among mortals, Vance Slade is called an ‘hysteric,’
lady. Those two seemed to have their heads about them. Which one was it? The long-haired one? He minded me of Kieran, you know."
"You push too far, Storyteller,"
warned Abigail, not wanting to be reminded of her brother- especially because Sgeulaiche had hit so near the mark. "It was neither
of them, and neither will ‘tell tales,’ as you put it. They would rather
believe any strangeness here to be a brief aberration, a trick of their own
minds- not a trick of an immortal sequestered in a tiny cabin in the
forest."
"Of course, of course," said the
dragon calmly, rolling over on its back to sun its belly. One large, leathery
wing unfurled itself out to the side; Abigail could see the delicate network of
veins running underneath the skin. "But just supposing..."
Abigail laid a quelling finger on the
dragon’s snout.
"There’s no supposing, my old
friend."
"My deepest apologies, lady," the
dragon said, inclining its head in a briefly mocking bow. "They seemed
like mortals who might see more of a person, though, than most would. More of a person, or a goddess, if it came to that." He
paused, tongue flickering, as he gazed on the woman-creature before him, who’d
gone from old to young and could as easily go back again.
"And I believe, my lady, it does come to
that, after all," he added after considering his thoughts.
The woman had to admit the rightness of the
dragon’s words. The one called Vin Tanner- an
exile in his own land who read the earth and water for a living, and those
haunting blue eyes told her he’d done something very like a deep reading of
those people he met in an otherwise solitary existence. And the other, Ezra
Standish; Abigail almost laughed at the web of contradictions woven about the
man, but also knew that his life, too, demanded the ability to see
past the moment, past the facades she had just now told Vin Tanner about.
If Sgeulaiche saw
her working these thoughts over in her mind, he didn’t say so; instead, he
merely turned over on his other side and stretched the other wing out in a soft
rustle of skin. The old black eyes- eyes almost as old as hers, and which had
seen almost as much- studied her intently.
"Oh, fine, then! You great pesky beast,
you," she snapped with mock anger, "supposing they did know. What
would we do? Kill them? The forest would take the gambler, maybe, but it does
not mind the tracker. Should I drive them mad with visions? Visit a plague upon
them? Send the small folk of this land to steal their tools and tack, or let
the horses loose?"
"It would be a start," Sgeulaiche said, and received a rap across his nose for
Abigail’s thanks. The dragon brushed a clawed foot across his snout and
glowered at her indignantly.
"You are just as much a slave to these
people as I am, Storyteller," Abigail said silkily, reminding her uppity
familiar of his true place. "You’ve been conquered by Saint George and the
Archangels, exalted by emperors, and slain by gods. I... I can claim no
different." Sad pride entered her words, and a regretful expression
crossed Sgeulaiche’s face.
Absently, the woman began to stroke the
dragon’s scaly head, and Sgeulaiche submitted happily
to her caresses, breaking their companionable silence only to ask what, then,
they would do.
"The mortals, they call it ‘going into
town,’" Abigail said finally. "Perhaps we should see something of
civilization in this land."
"It’s just as poisonous as the one in
She felt pain, then, in the land around her,
though it remained muted still. "We will soon have to leave this
place," Abigail whispered, "we should see
something of the men and women in it before we go."
"All men are the same," said the
dragon scornfully.
Abigail thought about the two men who just left her house. "Not all of
them are," she said almost under her breath, hoping that it was so.
CHAPTER TWO
The stagecoach pulled up in front of the
hotel, a swirl of kicked-up dust cloaking horses and coach alike. A side door
opened and two young women dressed in gray stepped out, talking in low voices
to one another.
One girl, blond-haired and pretty, laughed at
some comment her friend made; it was this laughter that first got the notice of
the tall, mustached man standing just down the street from them.
A quick brush-off of the day’s dust and a
straightening of imaginary lapels later, Buck Wilmington stood before the
giggling young ladies, offered them his best smile and said, "Well, hello
there, and welcome to
"A man who looks at a woman with lust in
his eyes hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," rasped
the old man, his voice casting a chilly pall upon
The old man eyed Buck disdainfully,
his right thumb absently polishing the tiny gold cross pinned on his coat
lapel. "Does Josiah Sanchez live here?" he demanded in a high,
querulous tone.
Buck took in the large frame and the pale
blue eyes, seeing more than a bit of Josiah in the craggy features. Unlike
Josiah, though, this man was gaunt and the eyes had nothing of Josiah’s
kindness in them. "Who’re you?" Buck asked, trying to ignore the
nagging thought that this man was kin to Josiah in some way.
"My name is Father Isaiah Sanchez,"
responded the old man. "And once more I will ask you, young man: does
Josiah Sanchez live here?" The pale blue eyes bored into Buck, as if the
force of their gaze could extract the answer; Buck decided that they might well
be able to. At any rate, the old man didn’t look like he’d
could actually harm Josiah- and he was a damned annoyance already- so
Buck told him.
"He does, Father," Buck said,
fighting to keep his voice empty of everything except helpfulness. "You
should be able ta find him down at the church, just
that way." He pointed down the street in the general direction of the
church and turned to make good his escape.
"Thank you, young man," said Isaiah
Sanchez gruffly. "And what is your name?"
Trapped like a rat. Buck muffled a snarl of
exasperation and held his hand out as he gave his name; Isaiah Sanchez took it
gingerly, as though handling something dead or distasteful. His reluctance was
not lost on Buck, who withdrew his hand quickly and finally got away from the
man, finding a safe haven in front of the sheriff’s office with
From the safety of the office porch, the
three men watched the old man make his slow, shambling way down the street to
the church.
"Thought the only livin’
relative he had was his sister," remarked
"If’n I had
someone in my family like that old coot, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell anyone
about it," snorted Buck, drawing amused looks from both
"Not everyone out there’s gonna take
kindly to you pantin’ after every woman that comes to
town, Buck," Nathan pointed out. "Rain’s father didn’t much like you eyein’ any of the girls at the Seminole camp, if you
remember."
"Hell, Nathan," argued Buck weakly,
"he was her father, for cryin’ out loud. That’s a
bit diff’frent from just bein’
a fellow passenger on a stagecoach."
"Maybe he was their father,"
interjected
"There ain’t no
way that man could be the father of those two turtledoves," he told
And they weren’t going to let it go, either.
Buck saw the futility of arguing with the two men and made a hasty retreat to
the saloon. Once he got halfway across the street,
_________________________________
"Hello, boy."
The big man hefting the heavy beam of wood
that would serve as the church’s communion rail suddenly felt like a fumbling,
gawky child. In a flash, he became a twelve-year-old possessed of too-big
elbows and hands with no grace at all and feet that needed growing into. A
child whose fingers tripped over themselves going through a rosary, whose voice
cracked during confession, and who once fell over his acolyte robe and broke
the incense chalice.
"Hello, Uncle Isaiah," said the boy
diffidently, pale blue eyes directed at the floor rather than at the face of
the big, terrifying man who loomed in front of him. He wondered why Uncle
Isaiah’s voice grated so, like a boot on gravel, why it creaked like old
leather.
"Well, boy, are you going to stand there
with that piece of wood or invite an old man to sit down in one of these...
these fine pews?" demanded Uncle Isaiah, casting a spurious eye over the
wooden seats.
The question brought Josiah past the moment;
he shook his head to reorient himself and managed to stutter out something he
hoped would pass for an invitation as he carefully set the beam down just
before the pulpit and brushed sawdust off his hands. He made a cursory bow to
the altar and turned to face the old, old man he hadn’t seen in fifteen years,
his father’s brother.
Uncle Isaiah’s eyes swept up and down Josiah,
coldly probing and assessing. Josiah felt all of ten years of age then, once
more, and didn’t like the feeling; he tried to see the wrinkled, dessicated, and visibly old man who sat in a back pew, but
couldn’t. He still saw the huge bones of the arms that could wield a whip to
good effect, the jutting jaw that proclaimed his Sanchez lineage... he still
saw everything that had made Uncle Isaiah the terror he’d always been.
"How’s my niece?" Uncle Isaiah
rasped. Another thing Josiah remembered about the man: nothing in Josiah’s life
belonged to Josiah- it belonged to either his father,
Uncle Isaiah, or God. If Uncle Isaiah couldn’t find a way to transfer ownership
from Josiah to one of the Holy Trinity (as Josiah’d
always mockingly thought of his father, uncle, and God) he employed the
person’s name.
"My sister," Josiah said slowly,
accenting the two words heavily, "is living in
the convent in
True to form, Uncle Isaiah didn’t hear
anything past
Josiah thought about Poplar and how close he’d come to losing first his freedom
and possibly his life, how his sister had suffered during that time- suffered
even more than she had been, he supposed, although maybe she was already mad
enough to not know the difference. For a second, he wanted to take her to
Frisco, to one of the big mental hospitals back East, somewhere that Uncle
Isaiah would approve of.
"I don’t think she’d be able to handle
the trip," he said finally. "An’ I think she likes the mission in
"She’s mad as a loon," Uncle Isaiah
snorted. "Don’t give me any of that hogwash about what she likes and
doesn’t like. My brother did all he could to raise my niece well and keep her
on a Godly path; Satan tempted her off of it, and she deserves what she’s ended
up with."
"Why d’ you want me to move her to
Frisco, then?" Josiah asked his uncle with an uncharacteristic boldness.
"Figured you’d want her in a hellhole like
Uncle Isaiah had no ready answer for the
unexpected challenge, so he glowered at his nephew and changed the subject;
Josiah felt a quick flash of triumph at stonewalling the old man.
"Hmph... So
this is God’s church?" Uncle Isaiah asked half-rhetorically. A
disapproving glower took in the ever-present dust, the spartan
decoration, the few mostly-melted prayer candles in
their motley holders.
"Yes, this is my church," replied
Josiah, sighing. He thought of Mrs. Nichols suddenly, for the first time in a
long time- Uncle Isaiah’s deprecating glare echoed the old lady’s disdain
perfectly. Sanchez wondered if the old bat of a matron was still married; his
uncle and Mrs. Nichols would hit it off. An uncharitable thought to think,
perhaps, toward a woman who’d lost so many of her sons in pursuit of vengeance,
but Josiah did not feel particularly charitable at the moment
.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness," Uncle Isaiah grumbled.
"Blessed be the meek," Josiah
returned.
"Hmph,"
grunted Uncle Isaiah. "I saw there was a reservation near here. You doin’ any work up that way?"
"What brings you here from Frisco?"
asked Josiah, not wanting to answer his uncle’s question; to do so would openly
antagonize the man, and Josiah fervently did not want that to happen. On the
other hand, he was most curious as to why a seventy-year-old man would make
such an arduous trip from
"I’m headin’
to
"Well, enjoy the rest of your
trip," Josiah said, more to fill a lull in the conversation than to
actually wish the man a good journey- though, if it helped him to move on
sooner, Josiah wouldn’t be averse to that.
"I don’t suppose you’ll help your kin
back to the hotel?" Uncle Isaiah asked crankily, standing up on weak legs
but batting off his nephew’s attempts to help. "Hands off, boy!" he
bellowed. "I can do it my ownself... Just point
me to the hotel and I’ll be fine."
"Back down the way you came,"
Josiah said shortly, watching the old man shamble out. "It’s on your
right."
"Thanks," was the curt reply,
followed by the inevitable, "Behave, Josiah Sanchez." With those
words as a benediction and warning both, Uncle Isaiah emerged into the sunlight
of the street and headed back to his hotel, leaving his nephew to wonder how
his week could get any worse.
CHAPTER THREE
Isaiah Sanchez shuffled down the dusty street
of the Godforsaken town some Godless prospector or railroad financier had seen
fit to call
He’d thought that coming to Four Corners to
see his nephew, poor wayward boy, would yield some good news; his nephew’s
infrequent letters to the rest of his family in San Francisco said only that
his church was doing well, that his flock prospered, and that God had smiled
upon him in sending him such a fertile ground in which to sow His word. Seeing
the dusty, unkempt church and the ragged, heathen cowhands staggering past it
had vastly changed Isaiah’s opinion of his nephew’s success- and state of mind.
So sunk in his thoughts had he gotten that he
almost fell over the drunken man who fell almost straight in front of him.
Biting back blasphemy, Isaiah managed to dodge the man without falling himself,
and loomed over the inebriate, who looked up at him and continued on with an
interrupted, muttered diatribe.
"Goddamned crazy witch..."
"My son, the Good Book commands us not
to take the name of Our Lord in-" Something snapped into Isaiah’s
awareness. "Did you say, ‘witch’, my brother?"
Vance Slade gazed up at the giant and nodded.
"Yessir," he said quickly. "The Witch
of
"I must confess I had not," Isaiah
mused as Slade staggered to his feet and regarded him with drunken bonhomie
tempered by seriousness. "Would you mind telling me about her?"
"My pleasure," hiccuped Slade, casting a fraternal arm around Isaiah’s
shoulders, blind to the significance of the gold cross on the preacher’s lapel. "She lives in
______________________________
Ezra and Vin rode in
from patrol, both of them hot, bored, and more than looking forward to
unwinding in the saloon. The gambler had no particular intentions toward
unwinding; for him, work would just be beginning as soon as he sat down behind
a poker table. As for the tracker, patrols did not constitute much of a
deviation from his normal, vigilant behavior; he would still keep a watchful
eye over his surroundings, relaxation or no, but being among friends gave him
the opportunity to let some of his guard down.
"Hey, Ez, you remember Abigail
Gentry?" Vin asked suddenly.
"Mr. Tanner, that was apropos of
absolutely nothing," Ezra said, wondering why his friend would ask such a
question- especially because Standish himself had been thinking of the woman
lately, and both of them hadn’t brought up the subject of their trip in the two
weeks since they’d gotten back from her home. "Well, I suppose I’ve
thought of her occasionally, whenever Mr. Slade or his compeers see fit to
remind us of the evils she allegedly perpetrates. Out of morbid curiosity, why
do you ask?"
Tanner shrugged elaborately, guiding Peso
past a stumbling old man who frowned up at the disheveled tracker; the frown
was ignored, which probably would irk the old man even more. "Just wonderin’," Tanner replied as casually as he could-
Ezra was not taken in by the sharpshooter’s apparent disinterest.
"Come now, Mr. Tanner," Standish
remonstrated, "you rarely ever ‘just wonder,’ and you certainly never ask
a question without need of an answer, especially if asking said question means
instigating conversation. Now, why do you ask?"
Vin pulled up in front of the livery and dismounted. From
behind the shield of Peso’s barrel he said, "Just got to thinkin’ about her, the day we went out to see if what
Slade n’ all them were sayin’ was true... Well, I was
actually thinkin’ about her paintin’s."
His blue eyes fixed on Ezra’s for a moment only before Vin’s
head lowered and he studied Peso’s cinch with great avidity.
Ezra shifted uncomfortably, remembering the
painting of the blond-haired woman embracing her child, and was glad Vin wasn’t looking at him. He managed to say, with some
degree of calmness, "Yes, they were quite remarkable, weren’t they?"
"Did... did you see a paintin’ that you really liked? I mean, one that really got
you to lookin’ at it, but when you took your eyes off
it, you couldn’t find it again?" The question was soft,
desperately diffident, as though Tanner had summoned all his courage to ask it.
Once more, Ezra found himself the target of Tanner’s piercing gaze; Vin must have read the answer in Ezra’s eyes because he
whispered, "I did, too."
As Ezra made his way around Peso and
approached the tracker, he saw the same turmoil in his friend’s eyes.
"What did you see, Vin?"
"A lady angel," Vin
said hoarsely, yet his eyes remained fixed on Ezra. "She had the biggest,
softest white wings n’ long brown hair... felt like if’n
I reached out, I coulda touched her feathers. It... it
looked like she wanted to hug me, maybe."
Ezra nodded abstractedly and forced himself
to tell Vin about the painting he had seen, sensing
that reciprocity was best in the case; Vin rarely ever offered anything of his
feelings to anyone, with the possible exception of
"You think it was just our imaginations,
Ez?" Vin asked finally, after a strange silence
spent itself.
Standish desperately wanted to believe that it was so- the logical part of him,
the part that had made much of his life possible and even enjoyable, insisted
that it be so- but another voice in him told Ezra that what he and Vin had
experienced in that cabin had been very, very real.
"I believe that we were most likely
deceived by our own minds," Ezra said at length, not wanting to admit that
something existed for which he could not account fully. "When you consider
those wind chimes- how Mr. Slade and the others did not even think to
investigate the possibility of their existence and so decided those noises were
the cries of lost and vengeful souls... It must be the same thing. There is
some logical explanation to it, I'm sure."
The words sounded hollow and meaningless in
his own ears, and he saw that Vin didn’t much believe
him either, but Tanner thankfully did not press the point. Instead, he turned
back to untacking his horse, and Standish did the
same; after they cooled down the animals and saw them safely back in their
stalls, the two men headed straight for the saloon- Standish for a long night
spent gambling with half a mind to his cards, and Vin for a long night spent
trying to find sleep and dreams.
He couldn’t sleep in the boarding room; just
the thought of it was enough to send claustrophobic chills dancing up his
spine. Instead, Vin headed for his wagon, but once
there he felt hemmed in by even the canvas walls that shook in the slight
breeze. He spent an hour in a fruitless search for sleep, tossing and turning
on the thin bedroll before finally giving up and making his way back to the
livery.
Peso didn’t complain as Vin
saddled him and pulled him out of his warm stall. The gelding cantered out of
the livery door, responding to his rider’s restiveness, and struck a path for
the open spaces. Together, both horse and rider loped over the moonlit land,
the horse gracefully evading dangerous gopher holes and treacherous shadows
alike. He could feel his rider’s eagerness to go faster and pulled on the bit
in response, but the man held both his desire to just run and his mount in
check.
They came upon one of Vin’s
favorite campsites, a small stand of trees encircling one of the rare natural
springs that graced an otherwise arid land. Peso blew noisily, still having
some fight in him and able to go for miles yet; Vin
himself felt as wide-awake as if it were still midmorning instead of near
He stood alone in front of Abigail Gentry’s
house. Smoke still curled from the chimney and her few chickens strutted about
the yard. One of the bay horses gazed at him complacently, dark eyes
investigating this new arrival before the horse turned back to its grazing. Vin could smell the smoke, hear the chickens clucking; as he
stepped close to the horse to touch it, he could feel the satin of the horse’s
nose underneath his fingers.
"Is this real?"
"It’s as real as anything is."
Vin jumped, not realizing he had spoken out loud, and
startled he had company. Abigail Gentry stood on her porch, clad in a green
dress this time but with the same shawl yet about her shoulders. He could feel
the heat of her scrutiny even from the distance that separated them, and he
shifted from foot to foot under that probing gaze; his discomfort only
increased as she stepped off the porch and strode out to meet him.
"This is Storyteller," she said,
pointing to the horse and stroking its neck; the horse leaned into the caress
and she smiled gently. "I’ve had him since I first came to this
place."
"Where’d you come from?"
She hesitated before answering. "A long
ways away," she said at last. "The Land of the ?s
Sidhe."
Vin rolled the strange words over and over his mind,
relishing the soft, musical lilt of them.
Aye-ees
Shee.
As he repeated them out loud, he almost
winced at the ungainly way they came off his tongue, twisted by his accent,
completely unlike her delicate, singsong pronunciation; she laughed gently,
again so much like music, and said: "The People of the Hills. Theirs is the
land I come from."
"That back East somewhere?"
Came laughter again, but no mockery in it.
"It is rather farther east than you are thinking, I believe. If you go
past the
The distance seemed almost inconceivable; Vin didn’t try to imagine it.
Instead, he asked, "You said that this place is just as real as anything
is. What’d you mean by that?"
Abigail’s laughter vanished, and the hand
stroking Storyteller’s neck paused. "I mean exactly what I said," she
told him softly. "This place is no more or less real than any other place,
than any other time. You here in this place are no more or less real than you
would be in any other."
He tried to get his mind around that and
couldn’t, felt mad that some essential truth lay just past the grasp of his
fingertips. Vin stretched, reached for that truth, but it still evaded him, and
his fury grew.
She saw this, of course, hazel eyes wise and
knowing. A gentle hand caressed his face, its touch feather-light and elusive
as the true meaning of her words. "It will come to you," she said,
withdrawing her hand and stepping away. The words echoed as a mist claimed her.
The words echoed as Vin started awake,
staring at the stars that had shifted their positions in the hours that he’d
been asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
At the same time that Vin Tanner laid awake
on his bedroll and contemplated things he felt terribly ill-equipped to deal
with, a creature of fey magic made its way past his camp, winging silently
toward
Sgeulaiche passed by the man, keeping carefully out of his line
of sight and shuttered his mind to Abigail, sequestered in her grove and doing
what, he couldn’t guess. The dragon sped silently through the air, under the
constellations and the watchful silvery eye of Diana, avoided by the creatures
of the night that made their homes in this place. At length, the dragon
alighted on the roof of the livery and made his way inside through an open
hatch leading to the hayloft.
His was a mischievious
spirit, despite the uncounted images man had painted of him- destroyer, bringer
of plague, serpent, a forerunner of Armageddon. Some respected him, called him
wise and fed his vanity with emblazoning his likeness on coins and silk
banners, all of which Sgeulaiche enjoyed immensely.
Still, he remained a creature who much preferred pleasure and rarely bestirred
himself to terrorize man, or to enlighten him. On times like these, when he
ventured forth from his home, he did so just for fun and out of no real malice,
however much he felt that the silliness of mankind warranted it.
And mankind, Sgeulaiche
reflected, warranted much malice- but he would not give it to them tonight.
Mischief yes, because the dragon enjoyed tricks and laughter, but not malice.
He decided to use that as his explanation and apology, for Abigail would find
out before long, and would be upset.
The dragon serpentined
his way down the ladder and picked his way through the shadowy environs of the
stable, the intermittent moonlight picking out the silvery green of his scales
and glinting on the shiny black orbs of his eyes. Horses whickered at his
presence but didn’t fidget or run away, wise to who and what he was, knowing
that he bore no harm toward them.
It took a few moments of search, but Sgeulaiche
finally spied the stagecoach resting in its corner of the attached carriage
house. He wished for the thumbs that humans had- only very briefly though, for
he was a proud dragon (as if there could be any other kind)- but his sharp
claws sufficed for the task at hand.
Within minutes, the entire stagecoach lay in
ruins, nuts and bolts pulled out of the wheels and the driver’s seat detached
and shredded by Sgeulaiche’s wicked talons. The
dragon surveyed his work with satisfaction, thinking about the little people of
this land and how strange they were, how frightened; they had only slowly begun
to reveal themselves to Abigail, bringing with them stories of railroads and
mourning for the one they called Buffalo, and then for the People they watched
over.
He crept back through the stables,
contemplated letting the stagecoach’s horses out; he knew which ones they were-
the black with four white stockings, the red roan, the blanket Appaloosa with
half a tail that the fleabitten gray had bitten off
one day in a fit of boredom. The horses tossed their heads, anxious to be let
loose, but Sgeulaiche decided against it; the latches
on their stalls looked tricky, and he considered the possibility of actually
being caught- he was not all-knowing, though he approached it, and could be
slain just as easily as anything, just as easily as the little people here.
Sgeulaiche supposed that the little people of this land feared
the interlopers and their iron, and so did little to turn them away, rendered
powerless by men who laughed at the prospect of their very existence. Fury rose
in the dragon at that, and he guessed that maybe the stagecoach could only be a
start- but it was a start nonetheless, he decided, and with that he made his
way back up to the loft, out the hatch, and flew away.
Ezra stumbled across the street, feet heading
instinctively toward his room in the boarding house. A black shape flitted through
the air; exhausted and distracted, Ezra dismissed the black form as a bat or
some kind of night-bird, and made his way through the boarding house door, up
the stairs, and to his bed. It took forever, almost, to climb the stairs and
stumble down the hall.
He pulled off his coat, dropped his hat on
the floor instead of tossing onto the bedpost as he usually did. Weariness
dragged at his body, but his mind flatly refused to calm down and allow either
itself or his body to go to sleep. His fingers slipped on the buckle to his gunbelt- once, twice, three times before he finally got it
to open and draped it over the bedhead. Not bothering
with his boots or vest, Ezra collapsed on his bed and stared at the ceiling,
praying for sleep.
Instead of sleep, his thoughts circled over
and over the events of the night, ranging from the poker games he had
halfheartedly played to Buck’s fruitless pursuit of those two convent
novitiates- he’d heard Wilmington and
"So you say she makes soap out of
babies’ fat?" the old man had asked, no disbelief in his tone. Ezra’s
cursory glance over the man had revealed him to be a clergyman of some sort,
and Ezra wondered what a preacher would be doing in a saloon. He had braced
himself for a lecture on the evils of gambling, but it thankfully didn’t come;
the old man had been caught up in Slade’s drunken recitation.
"I sure do say," Slade had
asserted, fumbling with the bottle of whiskey and his glass; wordlessly, the
old man had taken both bottle and glass, then poured Slade a refill. Slade had
given his thanks just before tipping back the whole glass and sputtering, had
continued with his story.
"That witch... she’s got a spell over
the entire God-be-damned-"
"Son, do not take the name of the Lord
in vain," the old man had interjected furiously, his color rising to a
dangerous redness. Drunk as he was, Slade must have seen the old man’s ire,
because his voice had dropped to a decorous whisper.
"Anyhow, that witch has a spell over th’ entire forest by Wilson’s Pass," Slade had said
softly, as if imparting a great secret instead of town gossip, "an’ she’s
got th’ skeleton o’ her dead husband hung up in her
house... don’t go to church, don’t celebrate
Ezra had attempted to dismiss Slade and his histronic ramblings, but the seriousness with which the old
man had met the news had concerned him. Even as Standish’s thoughts turned from
the two men’s conversation to the topic of it, his eyes fell shut and he
drifted off into sleep.
Into sleep, and into Ms. Gentry’s house.
The paintings still hung on the walls, their
colors blindingly bright and random. Great streaks of color, seemingly dashed
on by a careless hand, darted across the canvasses, extravagant waterfalls of
yellow running together with deepest blue to create a green as rich as any Ezra
had ever seen, the rich green of growing things like the trees of the forests
surrounding this house. He searched for any recognizable form in the riot of
colors, and there... suddenly...
He saw the gold-haired woman and her son,
still embracing, the mother’s head bent protectively over her child. Ezra
thought he’d be relieved at finally finding the elusive painting, but any
relief he felt was obscured by the unwelcome tightening in his throat and
chest, a sudden flood of sadness he felt unprepared to cope with.
"Do you like this one?" asked
Abigail Gentry.
Standish could only manage a nod; the knot in
his throat and his lungs’ abrupt refusal to work
would permit him to do nothing else. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment,
then he finally managed to say, "It is a rather... that is, it is rather
extraordinary."
A bright smile of genuine pleasure creased
her face. "I’m glad you think so," she said modestly.
"To be honest, I didn’t think you liked it very much at all."
"It reminds me of my mother," Ezra
said, the words escaping from his mouth before he realized that he had uttered
them. He cursed himself and his unexpected loss of ability to keep his feelings
hidden and his mouth shut. "That is, the uh... the woman bears quite a
resemblance to her. My mother used to wear a dress just like that... It was my
favorite." He remembered sitting on his mother’s bed as she inspected
herself in the mirror, swishing her blue dress; he liked to hear the silk
shushing against silk, liked the way the light gleamed off it. Where had that
memory come from?
Best not pursue those thoughts, he decided
after a second. Ezra remembered the picture Vin had described- the painting of
the angel woman with long brown hair. He began to look for it, and strangely
was not surprised when he couldn’t locate it.
"I was searching for another painting
here... a painting of an angel," Ezra said casually, watching Abigail’s
lined face closely.
The bespectacled eyes didn’t even flinch as
she said, "You won’t be able to see it, and he wouldn’t be able to see
this one. That is Vin Tanner’s painting, and this one is yours."
"Quite a limited viewing public you
have," Ezra remarked, not really meaning to sound sarcastic, but the
statement came out flip anyway.
It didn’t ruffle her at all, and Ezra
suddenly felt as though he stood on the brink of some realization... The
realization that had eluded him when Abigail and Vin had talked about masks and
illusions. The sense of not quite grasping something irritated him; she saw
this and said, "You see what you wish to in these paintings, Ezra. What
you see, this woman and her child, is part of you- is part of what your heart
sees."
He managed a quick laugh to cover his discomfort.
"I would greatly appreciate seeing a painting of a considerably large pot
in the middle of a poker table- or better yet, in my wallet."
Abigail smiled and laid a kind hand on his
arm. "That is not your heart, Ezra Standish."
"I think I’m in the best position to
judge what is in my heart," Ezra said stiffly, not wanting her to know how
close she’d come to hitting the mark.
"Men don’t know their own hearts,"
Abigail commented, and he heard a little scorn work its way through her
patient, gentle tone. "If they did, perhaps things would be easier. At any
rate, what is in this painting," she gestured to the mother and her son,
the smile fading from her face to be replaced by seriousness, "it speaks
to a deeper truth in you."
"What is it?" demanded Ezra, deeply
frustrated by the truth that still skipped just past his grasp.
Once more Abigail Gentry smiled, enigmatic
and knowing all at once. "It will come to you," she said, and with
the words she faded into the light of early morning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Isaiah Sanchez stood outside the hotel, his
two young charges by his side, impatiently waiting for the stagecoach to make
its appearance. His pocket watch pointed to
As if his thoughts had summoned the man, the
driver materialized before them, wringing his hat in his hands and his
expression falling somewhere between apologetic, bewildered, and terrified.
He stared at his three passengers a moment before saying, "Uh, there’s
problems with the stage... uh, a few things on it are busted an’ we might have
to wait a coupla days for repairs." The man
shifted from foot to foot and waited nervously for the verdict.
"A couple of days?" echoed Sanchez;
the girls next to him sighed as their escort’s legendary temper flared up
again. "What do you mean by ‘a couple days’, my good man? What would
possibly be wrong with a stagecoach that it requires ‘a couple days’ worth of
repairs?"
The driver paled and quavered a bit.
"It’s... uh, it’s busted, sir," he said, quailing at the scowl that
worked its way across Sanchez’s face in reaction to the news.
"’Busted’," Sanchez repeated.
"I would like to see the stagecoach for myself, sir, to see whether or not
it requires ‘a couple days’ spent on repairing it." Without waiting for
the driver’s agreement, he turned on his heel and shambled down the street to
the livery, taking note of the crowd beginning to gather around it. As Sanchez
drew closer, he could pick out murmurs and exclamations of astonishment,
amusement, and fear.
"Didja ever
see anythin’ like that?" a grizzled old
prospector whispered.
"Ain’t never seed anythin’
like it b’fore in my life," responded a farmer,
scratching his forehead.
"Hey, Mr. Larabee, you gonna catch the
guys what did this?" demanded the indignant hostler from the innermost
ring of the circle that Sanchez had just pushed himself to.
When he saw what the townsfolk saw, even
Isaiah Sanchez had to pause for a moment to take the scene in. The stagecoach
lay in ruins, the beaten doors scratched and hanging off of half-torn hinges.
The driver’s box was spread liberally around the floor of the carriage house,
with the lug nuts and bolts of the wheels interspersed among them. One wheel,
torn off completely, lay in two shattered halves. The leather undercarriage,
too, had not escaped destruction.
"Hey, Adderly!"
shouted an anonymous citizen to the beseiged coach
driver, "you got insurance on that thing?" A chorus of nervous
snickers responded.
"Shut up, all of you!" commanded
the man Isaiah Sanchez knew as
"Here,
Instead, he stood by Larabee and took in the
destruction silently before turning to his leader with a question, "Don’t
suppose we could get everyone outta here? They’ve already gotten rid of a buncha tracks, more n’ likely." That last with a quick
flash of disapproval and frustration- so the man was a tracker, Sanchez
realized, taking in the young man’s scruffy appearance and liberal coating of
dust. The man appeared in need of a washing- one physical, one spiritual.
"Hey, Tanner! You gonna find who did
this?" shouted someone from the crowd. Tanner’s blue eyes flickered with
annoyance and he cast an expressive glance at Larabee, who merely nodded.
"My thoughts exactly," Larabee said
in response to an unspoken question, and turned to the crowd with a command to
leave; most did, immediately, but a few balked until a frigid glare drove them
away. Sanchez lingered in the distance, old ears tuned to their conversation,
pretending to pet one of the coach horses.
"Hey, Thompson!" Tanner called out,
forestalling the departing hostler. The man turned with an inquisitive look on
his face, all vacant helpfulness thought Sanchez scornfully, and Tanner asked,
"You close the livery door last night?"
"Yessir, as
always," responded Thompson, seeming mystified.
Tanner turned back to survey the corpse of
the stagecoach. "Looks like a wild animal did this. Claw marks on the door
an’ some of the wood scraps..." He knelt to inspect one of the wheels,
picking it up and turning it over thoughtfully. "Yeah, some kinda animal... looks almost like a cougar, maybe a small
bear..."
"Ain’t no way a cougar or bear could get
in here without settin’ off the horses," Larabee
pointed out, and Tanner nodded.
"Yeah, that’s what I’m thinkin’. Damn idiot crowd erased any tracks," Tanner
said critically, looking at the floor as he made his way over to a corner of
the stable. Sanchez followed the man with his eyes, waiting for any
developments.
He got one.
"
Larabee made his way over to where Tanner
stood, next to the ladder leading to the hayloft. Sanchez casually moved down a
couple stalls and began to rub the nose of an Appaloosa with a ridiculous scrap
of a tail. Tanner’s voice had dropped, and Sanchez belatedly realized that the
tracker knew he and Larabee had an audience.
"Claw marks on th’
ladder, too. He probably came in through a hatch in the loft. ‘S been so hot
lately, Thompson’s been leavin’ the loft doors open
for air."
"Still, no matter how one got down here,
a cougar or bear woulda had all the horses makin’ a racket. And why would a cougar come in to rip up a
stagecoach, anyway? Not like he could have gotten a meal off the thing,"
Larabee said.
Tanner sighed. "Not to mention he’d have
to have flown to get in the loft in the first place."
"You sure this wasn’t done by a person?"
"I am," Tanner said immediately,
and Sanchez wondered at the confidence of the man. "A person couldn’t just
tear a wheel off- or break it in half, either... Hell. I’ll go trackin’ today, see if’n I can
pick up any tracks, but it looks like this one ain’t gonna be solved,
"Have the same feelin’,
cowboy. Still, go out lookin’, see if you can’t find
somethin’." Tanner and Larabee grasped forearms and the tracker departed
for his horse, tethered to the corral fence outside. Sanchez made his way
outside and accosted Larabee as the man headed toward the sheriff’s office- or attemped to, for Larabee brushed by, sunk in his own
thoughts.
Scowling, Sanchez himself departed, heading
for the saloon and the drunken ramblings of Vance Slade. As expected, he found
the man there already well on his way to being drunk, muttering about the Witch
of Wilson’s Pass. A young man sat near Slade, busily packing away a large stack
of pancakes. Isaiah brushed past him and sat down next to Slade, who stared at
him blankly for a moment, as if trying to place his face.
"It’s the Witch of Wilson’s Pass,"
Slade slurred, fingers fumbling for his shot glass.
"Aw, c’mon, Slade! Quit it with the
Witch of Wilson’s Pass stuff," interrupted the young man, turning away
from his pancakes and giving the man what Sanchez felt sure was supposed to be
an intimidating glare. "You’ve been goin’ on
about her since
Slade looked like he wanted to say something,
but Sanchez leaped into the sudden silence before the man could say a word.
"You believe in the Witch of Wilson’s
Pass, boy?"
"No, I don’t, sir," the young man
said firmly. "She’s just some story someone came up with to scare his
kids. Everyone knows that."
A plan began to form in Sanchez’s mind; if he
was stuck here for the next few days waiting for the coach to be reassembled,
he might as well spend it in a productive manner. "Would you be willin’, young man, to ride out there an’ see for
yourself?"
"Sure would, sir," the boy said
firmly, but indecision lurked in his eyes.
"Don’t go out there," pleaded
Slade, his whiskey bottle forgotten. He turned to Sanchez with a
beseeching look. "She’ll git ya, Mr. Sanchez,
sir. She’ll git ya an’ strip the meat from your
bones, then dance in your guts come next full moon. Ever’one
says so."
"Mr. Sanchez?" the young man asked.
"Oh, hey! You’re Josiah’s uncle, right?"
"I am, boy," Sanchez affirmed.
"And who might you be?"
"J.D. Dunne, sir," he said.
"We got enough time to get to the pass by early afternoon, I think, if you
wanted to go right away."
"I do, Mr. Dunne, I do," Sanchez
said, standing and shuffling out of the saloon. Unexpectedly, young Mr. Dunne
abandoned his breakfast and pursued him.
"Mr. Sanchez, sir," J.D. began hesitantly,
"are you gonna be okay to ride? I mean, ‘cause we can take a wagon out
there, if you wanted to... We don’t gotta
ride..." He trailed off at the icy expression that crossed Sanchez’s face.
"Boy," Isaiah said slowly, coldly,
"these old bones can still sit a horse. Now go tack one up for me, an’
we’ll be on our way."
"Yessir,"
the boy replied and trotted toward the livery. Sanchez basked in the light of
his
accomplishment, watching J.D. stride down the street, but his satisfaction was
short-lived, for his nephew appeared beside him with a disapproving look on his
face.
"Uncle Isaiah, what’re you doin’?" Josiah demanded.
"Boy’s tackin’
a horse for me," snapped Isaiah, glaring at his nephew, who backed down a
little bit. "An old man’s still allowed to go ridin’,
ain’t he?"
"He sure is," Josiah replied,
sighing. "But his nephew’d like to know where,
though."
"Oh, so now the elder’s gotta report to the younger? Seem to remember the Good Book
sayin’ the opposite. Said somethin’ about respectin’ your elders, but then I’m an old man, so I don’t
remember things as good as I used to..."
Josiah rolled his eyes and threw up his hands
in a gesture of resignation. "Fine!" he growled.
"Fine! Break your neck, what do I
care?" And with that, the wayward, headstrong boy stalked off and left
Isaiah Sanchez alone.
CHAPTER SIX
Isaiah Sanchez’s nephew slouched in a pew in
God’s house.
Josiah snickered at the thought, even though
he really didn’t find it to be all that funny; it couldn’t be good when he
started thinking about things like his uncle would think about them. The bottle
of whiskey- the Devil’s temptress, Uncle Isaiah said frequently- sat unopened
before him, and Josiah didn’t particularly have any interest in it. Not because
it was the Devil’s temptress, but because he wasn’t thirsty and drinking felt
like too much of an effort anyway.
Ever since the crowd disbanded from the
livery, Josiah had been gripped by apprehension. He didn’t know why; he had the
utmost faith that Vin would track down some kind of clue and that whoever
shredded the stagecoach would be brought to justice, so it wasn’t that. Maybe
it was just having his uncle in the same town for the next few days, Josiah
guessed. That would almost certainly do it- the thought of spending any length
of time with Uncle Isaiah made his stomach spin a little.
Part of Josiah fervently wished that it would
be otherwise; the scattered remnants of his family never wanted to see him, and
he had no desire to see them at all, especially after his poor sister finally
gave into madness and he sent her to
Good Lord, he hated this.
"Mr. Sanchez?"
Josiah lurched upright, startled out of his
thoughts and into the real world. As soon as his voice box returned to its
place, as it had been dislodged by his heart, Josiah asked, "How can I
help you, Brother Standish?"
Ezra took a seat in the pew across the aisle
from Josiah, and the preacher had to admit the gambler looked terrible. Dark
shadows underlined red-rimmed eyes, and Standish’s pale, fine-featured face was
ghostly and drawn, haggard underneath an unbrushed
cap of auburn hair. His gunbelt was buckled on
backward, and his clothes looked slept in- or not slept in, Josiah reflected.
Normally, Ezra sat straight up in his chair; even after hours of poker games
and not stirring from one spot, his back would remain ramrod-straight, his
shoulders set back gracefully.
Now, though, he slouched just as Josiah did.
A long silence passed, and Ezra’s face went
through a few interesting contortions, as if he struggled with words that never
would sound quite right. When he finally spoke, Josiah had the feeling that the
words that came, the question they formed, were not the words Ezra had wanted
to say.
"What was that massive congregation
doing at the livery this morning?" Ezra asked. "As I was peacefully
dead to the world, as they say, while the herd was milling about that general
vicinity, I ended up missing out on a great spectacle, apparently, except that
no one will discuss it with me in detail."
Josiah filled Ezra in on the details, strange
and sketchy as they were. "Yeah, guess
"Mr. Thompson always keeps the doors to
the livery shut," Ezra said with a frown.
"Guess whatever it was must have flown
in, then," Josiah remarked, laughing a little at the absurdity of such a
thought, felt disappointed when Ezra barely favored him with a slight twist of
his lips into a half-hearted smile, and then felt surprised when Standish
abruptly changed tack.
"What does the Bible say about loving
one’s parents, Mr. Sanchez? Is that a Commandment? I confess it’s been a while
since I last read the Good Book, and I was never what one would call conversant
with it to begin with."
"God instructed the Israelites to honor
their mothers and fathers," Josiah said slowly, "but I don’t believe
He commanded that love be a part of the bargain. Perhaps He knew his limits...
that even He couldn’t impose boundaries on the human heart in such a way. Greek
myths traditionally reward those children who love and serve their parents
well. Why do you ask?"
Ezra shrugged and studied his hands. "I
don’t know," he muttered. "What about parents loving their children,
then?"
"Same thing. Why?" A hundred other
questions flitted around Josiah’s brain, all demanding that he ask them. As a
rule, Ezra never talked about family, aside from making caustic comments about
his mother- both in front of her and in her absence. As much as Josiah loved
the woman, her cavalier attitude toward her child, as a fellow competitor,
occasional ally, and frequent adversary, grated on him a little bit. He tried
to think of Maude, the difficulty of being a single mother, and wondered if
maybe she and Ezra didn’t love each other in their own way, if they didn’t
honor each other in their own way as well.
Then he’d think of his own family and realize
his relationship with his father had scarcely been any better. He’d been
thinking of his father too much lately, Josiah decided, and vowed to
concentrate on the matter at hand. Sanchez waited until Ezra had apparently
worked something out, but all he got was a deeply frustrated and completely
incomprehensible reply.
"Then why do I want that?" Ezra
whispered roughly, staring at his hands.
"Want what?" asked Josiah as gently
as he could.
Ezra shook his head in frustration.
"I... I would rather not..." He trailed off, and the helplessness in
the always-confident gambler’s voice tore at Josiah, commanding that he persist
in questioning Ezra until he revealed what he wanted. Years of time behind the
confessional screen, and now two years of deciphering the mysteries that were
his six best friends, silenced him though.
"When you want to talk about it, Brother
Standish, let me know."
Standish nodded vigorously and once more swung onto a new tangent. "I saw
a man who looked rather like you in the saloon the other day. May I inquire as
to whether or not he is a relation of yours?"
"You may," Josiah said, making a
face. "His name is Isaiah Sanchez, and he’s my uncle. Or rather, I’m his
nephew." The quizzically-raised eyebrow that greeted this remark almost
made Josiah laugh.
"I saw him in the saloon just
yesterday," Ezra explained, "talking with Mr. Slade. Is he a man of
the cloth as well? If so, I must say your family’s convictions toward spirits
of the earthly persuasion are a certain match for those toward-"
"Talking with Vance Slade?" Josiah
interrupted, wondering what his evangelical uncle was up to. "He didn’t
try to prosetlyze to ol’
Rye Whiskey Vance, did he?" The humiliation of having his uncle in town
would end up making his life shorter, Josiah thought bleakly. It had taken the
townsfolk time enough to accept an ex-preacher who knew just as much about
Cherokee mysticism as the Epistles of Paul; stubborn folk that they were, how
would they take to a Bible-thumping zealot like Uncle Isaiah?
"No.. no... he was discussing the Witch
of Wilson’s Pass with him, of all things," Ezra told him.
"Hm... he’s
still at that, is he?" Josiah mused, half to himself and half to Ezra.
"Thought he’d gotten over that little thing long ago."
"What ‘little thing’?" asked Ezra.
Josiah heard more than passing interest in the question, although he also knew
the gambler had tried to mask it.
"He’s particularly attached to a couple
verses in First Samuel- somewhere in Chapter Fifteen, if I remember
rightly" Josiah explained, and then quoted, "’Has the Lord as great
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness is as iniquity and
idolatry.’
"Old Uncle Isaiah used to frighten me
with those verses, said that if I didn’t shape up, I’d be no better than the
Gypsies and Indians, who make blood sacrifices and all’a
that. Heh... see, Brother Ezra, I come from a long
line of missionaries. My father, at least, believed in convertin’
‘em. Uncle Isaiah... he wanted ‘em
gone altogether. ‘Send the witches back to
"I see," Ezra said heavily, and
Josiah felt the day-old foreboding come back with a vengeance; something in
Ezra’s face distressed him, and it worried Josiah that he couldn’t identify it.
"And where is he now, may I ask? I would have expected to be intruding on
a convivial family reunion..."
"Went ridin’
with J.D.," Josiah said shortly. "They left some time after the crowd
at the livery broke up. Uncle Isaiah probably bullied the boy into taking
him."
"He coerced Mr. Dunne into taking him
riding? I deeply admire the boy," Ezra commented and Josiah laughed
softly, amazed at the gambler’s ability to pick up on Josiah’s own attitude
toward his uncle. "Where do you suppose they could have gone?"
"Probably out to investigate the truth
behind the Witch of Wilson’s Pass," Josiah replied, meaning it as a joke.
"Oh, God," whispered Ezra. A stricken
look flashed across his face, though it closed off quickly behind his
traditional, expressionless mask. "Do you know where Mr. Tanner
went?" The pale green eyes met Josiah’s, filled with a terrible urgency
made all the more striking by the red rims that underlined them.
"Probably out somewhere past the livery,
but you’ll never find him, Ez," Josiah said, wondering what had so visibly
upset the gambler.
"I have to," Ezra murmured
abstractedly, standing up and straightening his coat determinedly.
"Thank you for your help, Mr.
Sanchez."
"Any time, Ez, but you mind explainin’ wha-"
"No time, Mr. Sanchez," Ezra called
over his shoulder as he strode swiftly out of the church. "No time!"
The apprehension that grew in Josiah suddenly
swelled to fever pitch, but he sat alone in the church, thinking of Ezra and
his uncle and families, and wondered what to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
An hour had passed by since Thompson had
helped the cantankerous old Mr. Sanchez into his saddle, and J.D. desperately
wanted to go home. The allure of glorious adventure- crusade, he had thought at
one point- faded in the face of old Mr. Sanchez’s endless complaints and preaching;
if he’d known that the opportunity to unmask the Witch of Wilson’s Pass
ultimately meant listening to lectures on the evils of witchcraft and deviancy,
J.D. decided he would have been more than content with letting the woman
conjure her spells in peace.
The worst part had been when the two of them
ran across Vin, who had been on his way back from a fruitless search for any
tracks made by the mysterious villain who’d seen fit to dismantle the
stagecoach. The hostility that had radiated off the old man at the sight of the
tracker had made J.D. nervous, and the conversation had been even worse.
"Any luck, Vin?" J.D. had asked
Tanner, who shook his head in frustration.
"None at all," Vin had said,
frowning. "Damn smart of him to hide his tracks- nothin’
good for miles in either direction. Don’t think we’re gonna find him."
J.D. had felt bad for the tracker, whose skills had proven ineffectual for the
first time in a long time, but he didn’t offer any words of consolation,
knowing Vin wouldn’t take any comfort in them- and would be offended anyway.
"Do you think Satan’s daughter would be
fool enough to leave tracks?" Sanchez had demanded. Vin had pinned the old
man with an unreadable expression, but didn’t say anything; in the awkward,
charged silence, the tracker had shrugged and ridden away. The silence and
departure warranted another stream of commentary from the old man; several
times, J.D. had tried to jump in and defend his friend, but the old man kept
going.
The old man had finally taken a break to
drink from his canteen, old hands shaking as he lifted the jug to his lips.
J.D. watched, fascinated, as a tiny waterfall trickled down the man’s shriveled
neck and stained his shirtfront. Mr. Sanchez replaced the canteen and scowled
at J.D. disapprovingly; the youth averted his eyes and prayed he hadn’t been
observed watching the old man drink.
"Do you respect your elders, young
man?" demanded Sanchez.
"Well, yes, sir," J.D. answered
faintly, wondering where the question had come from, and feeling guilty that
his answer wasn’t entirely truthful; he respected
"I’m surprised your mother lets you
gallivant around in such a way," Sanchez remarked.
That erased any contrition in J.D.’s mind. He
bristled, drawing himself up and giving Sanchez his best glare. "My mother
died over two years ago," he said, trying to keep his voice just on the
right side of respectful.
"Hm," was
his only reply.
Fury threatened to boil over- J.D. hated
feeling like he wanted to deck the man, but he did.
Sanchez had managed to insult both a friend and his mother, and J.D. never took
kindly to anyone insulting or harming those he cared about. When Rafael had
casually sat down with him and
"If you’re against Buck Wilmington,
you’re against me."
"You gonna shoot all of us, boy?"
Yates had demanded.
"No, just you." He’d been too riled
to be scared, both times.
J.D. shook his head; such thoughts only fed
his anger, and they had just gotten to the Pass anyway. He considered the green
depths of the forest, suddenly thinking about how the woods seemed to just wait
for him... He glanced at Sanchez, and the old man seemed unafraid.
"Well, boy, this is the place I take
it?"
"Yessir, it
is," J.D. affirmed. "I’ll haveta find a
trail, first, though. I don’t know where she lives, exactly- no one does. We
don’t even know if she exists." He urged his horse closer to the treeline, even though the horse balked and resisted
vigorously. The wind came up, and a ghostly moan echoed through the woods;
J.D.’s heart hammered in his chest, but he made himself keep going. It seemed
to take forever, but he finally found what looked like a promising trail and
silently thanked Vin for all those tracking lessons.
He beckoned the old man closer, and Sanchez
obeyed with a curt, "Well?"
"This looks pretty good," J.D.
said. "Let’s get goin’." An expectant look
prompted him to tack on a reluctant, "sir."
J.D. started off down the trail, the old man
following close behind. The forest seemed to loom around them, a vast and
brooding presence that made J.D. want to shrink down in his saddle and bury his
face in his horse’s neck; the creature picked up on it and danced anxiously,
further heightening J.D.’s own nervousness. He controlled the animal as best he
could, feeling ill at ease in the saddle, which was strange for him. He tried
to keep his mind on the twisting trail beneath his horse’s hooves, the way it
looped back on itself and would almost run out into a dead-end before revealing
its continuation a little farther on. It felt like ages, the time he spent in
the wood so far, the light flickering strangely through the treetops.
Suddenly, they came upon the clearing and the
small house with its attendant outbuildings, and he almost gasped from relief
and tried to continue on into the yard, when the stern hand of Sanchez on his
arm forestalled him. J.D. opened his mouth to protest, but a fierce look from
the old man, and a finger pointing to something in the clearing silenced him.
What he saw drove away words and almost
coherent thought alike.
A beautiful young woman danced in the
clearing, wearing a silk gown so thin as to be almost transparent. The sunlight
filtered through the material, silhouetting her slender body and the graceful
movements described by long arms and legs. That same light caught in her hair,
playing along the dark and rich length of it, encircling her head in an angel’s
halo.
She turned her face in his direction then,
and her beauty brought a constriction to J.D.’s throat, bands tightening around
his heart and lungs made it hard to breathe. Her dark hair framed a
delicately-boned face, heart-shaped and clean just like the flawless lines of
her body. Rich hazel eyes shone with an inner radiance; they gazed off into
some indeterminate distance, enraptured and entrancing both. Her lips curved
upward in a slight, mysterious smile and her eyes shut in some private ecstasy.
As she turned from him- she had not seen
them, J.D. realized distantly- her arms lifted; she cupped her palms as if
catching the spill of golden light from the heavens. Her body swayed to unheard
music- no, not unheard, J.D. thought; she moved to the rhythms of the forest
that surrounded them all, her movements just as random and perfect as the
stirring of the breeze through the woods. In a sudden burst of clarity, he
could hear the drums that were the heartbeats of trees, the plaintive singing
of leaves and grass in the wind, the whispers of the creatures that lived among
them...
J.D. felt guilty then, to be spying on some
intensely private ritual, but found he couldn’t speak.
He continued to watch instead, some part of
his mind wondering that he hadn’t yet felt a stir of desire. She was thousands
of times more beautiful than Casey, with her perfect and graceful body that
still continued to flow in time to that haunting music, but yet... Yet he just
watched, more in wonderment than anything.
He thought, then, of his mother and how they
used to dance all the time. Even when a long day had exhausted her with its
myriad labors, she would come home and after bathing herself and him (when he’d
been little, of course), she would tell him about hearing her employer’s
daughter playing the piano, or the orchestra that had played at a party. After
that, she’d hum bits of Mozart or Brahms, then pick him up and waltz across the
floor of their small apartment; when he’d gotten older and could remember music
for himself, he would lead her in their dance and make requests.
"Could ya sing that con- concher... whatzitcalled,
Mother?"
"Concerto, J.D. Which one?"
"The one that you said you heard down
by the conservatory. Please?"
And that’s why he felt nothing except awe for
this spirit of a woman, who held her arms out in a circle then, as if embracing
an invisible partner. She said something, though he couldn’t make it out; the
language she spoke was just as lilting and delicate as she herself was, a silvery
tumble of music that made J.D. want her to say more, just to hear her voice.
Gracefully, then, she climbed atop the corral
fence, settling as a bird would settle down from flight, and she began to
stroke a bay horse’s nose, talking to it in that same strange tongue. She
laughed once, clear bells sounding, but her voice then shaded toward darkness-
disapproving, J.D. realized. The horse didn’t reply in any strange way, merely
tossed its head and stared at her mildly.
The young woman alighted from the fence then
and darted inside the house, a quick flashing of long-limbed movement. The door
shut behind her, and J.D. felt loss welling up in him, a deep sadness at her
sudden departure. With her leaving, though, he tumbled quickly back into the
world from whatever plane she’d taken him to, just in time to hear Isaiah
Sanchez say:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live..."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vin had turned around shortly after running
across J.D. and Isaiah Sanchez; he couldn’t say what had led him to track them,
but the soft, instinctual voice to which he owed his life warned him that their
presence not five miles from
Tanner shuddered at the thought and urged
Peso to a quick lope as he followed the clear path J.D. and Sanchez had taken.
It led straight toward
What secrets?
He wanted to kick himself for thinking that a
sweet-tempered, intelligent woman like Abigail Gentry would have anything to
fear from J.D., or even from Isaiah Sanchez. But even as he thought that, he
remembered the angel painting, the dream he’d had of her- and the possibility
that he had not dreamed her, that he had really stood in front of her and
spoken with her, real as anything... A certainty dwelled in him, he realized, a
certainty that the woman called Abigail Gentry was more than she seemed.
At long last, he gained the edge of the
forest and, barely hesitating, crashed into it. He felt guilty at the brutal
intrusion, as Peso trampled undergrowth and snapped branches under his hooves.
The trail came more easily to his eyes this time- more easily, because he could
see two fresh sets of hoofprints and places where
bushes had been pushed to the side. The tight quarters of the trail made it
difficult to move quickly; Peso slowed instinctively, but Vin pushed him on
with seat and knees, and the horse compliantly kept moving.
The path twisted along, its hairpin turns and
dangerous trip-roots coming at almost impossible speeds. Vin could see sweat
whipped into lather on Peso’s neck, feel the straining of the horse’s sides.
Just when Tanner thought he’d have to slow up and give the horse a rest, they
made the clearing and broke out onto open ground.
Only the horses and chickens greeted him; the
yard was eerily silent. Vin looked around, not seeing any other sign of human
life, and breathed a sigh of relief as he dismounted. Peso stood, head down
dejectedly, sides heaving for breath.
"Sorry, ol’
boy," whispered Vin contritely, not bothering to tie the horse, and strode
up to the house. He knocked on the door, not expecting an answer, and so was
surprised when he heard a soft, "Come in, Mr. Tanner."
He opened the door, stepping once more into
the riot of color that was her sitting room. Abigail Gentry sat in the center
of it, dressed once more in green, holding a palette in one hand and a brush in
the other. A large easel, set so that Vin couldn’t see the canvas set on it,
stood before her.
Uneasily, Vin pulled his hat off and murmured
greetings; she smiled a smile which made years melt off her face and returned
them, beckoning him over to inspect her work. He came at her bidding, standing
over her shoulder and taking in the bright swirl of fresh paint, paint that
formed the wild beauty of a desert sunset.
"It’s right pretty," he said
slowly. "Looks just like sunset down in the canyons durin’
winter, when the clouds bother clearin’ out long
enough for the sun t’ come through."
"I’m glad you like it, Mr. Tanner,"
Abigail said softly. "How may I help you?"
How could he? She looked fine; Vin cursed
himself for a fool at panicking, but said lamely, "I uh, saw some riders headin’ out this way..."
"Ah, a boy and an old man?"
"Yeah," he managed to say past a
throat closed by amazement. "Did ya meet them?"
"No, but I saw them," she said
dismissively, thoughtfully picking up a knife and cleaning a small glob of
extra paint off her palette. Vin could see a small house, its shadow stretching
out long behind it, perched on the ground underneath the great arch of fiery
sky. "The boy... he has a good soul, with imagination and belief to spare.
But the old man," she paused, frowning as she drew a finger through the
wet paint on the canvas, "his is an unbelieving spirit, I think. He will
cause trouble."
"How do ya know?"
She smiled gently. "I just know. It is
the way of things, as it has ever been and will ever be."
"Miz Gentry,
ma’am, if they’re gonna come here for certain." Vin felt frustration well
up in him as she continued to paint, methodically wiping her brush off on the
rag close at hand. Once again, her words touched him at a depth to which he
couldn’t dive. "They’re gonna come here, an’ either drag you off to jail
or lynch ya," he tried.
She smiled softly. "They won’t hurt me,
Vin," she said as she mixed a deep blue on her palette and dipped a brush
in the shining oils. "They’ll come here, yes, but they won’t hurt me...
They won’t hurt me any more than they already have."
"What’dya
mean?" asked Vin, mystified.
"Nothing," she said quickly,
looking away from him.
"Did anyone do anythin’
to ya?" Vin looked away, slightly embarrassed at the inference he was
making. She smiled, gently as always, and laid a reassuring hand on his arm
before turning his head back to face her; hazel eyes regarded him,
heartbreakingly clear but with some secret in them that drifted just past Vin’s
fingertips.
"No, they did not," she told him
with unexpected seriousness before she smiled once more. "You remind me
very greatly of Kieran," Abigail added softly, fondly almost. She saw the
expression on his face and continued, her voice becoming sad with old memory,
"He had blue eyes so much like yours, and was just as stubborn with his
questions. I haven’t seen him in so long... I do not know where he is or how he
fares. You see, he was my younger brother, as such things are reckoned among
us."
Vin stared at her. What did she mean, ‘As
such things are reckoned among us’?
The question tied itself up in the same
secret that had evaded him the night he dreamt of her, and even more than that.
A thousand years of secrets swam in those eyes.
"Who are you?" He asked the
question impulsively, the words escaping from him before he realized what
happened. A silence descended over them, charged with deep meaning, and Vin
suddenly felt overwhelmed by the moment, seeing her perhaps for the first time,
seeing the magic of her and this place for what it was.
She stood, and for the first time it hit him
how tall she was; ageless hazel eyes stared directly at him, a silent
challenge, but the eldritch voice was soft, gentle. "I am Morrigan," she whispered. "I am Agrona and Diana, Hebe and Isis, the Virgin Mary and
Ishtar, Kali and Persephone and the Spider Woman. I am Big Raven’s wife and the
girl who threw fire-sparks into the sky to create the Milky Way. I am Rhiannon
and Freya and the Wood Maiden who Betushka danced
with.
"I am all, and none of these things."
As she spoke, age faded from her face. A
blinding radiance filled her, so bright he half-shut his eyes. Lines created by
the sun and wind vanished, leaving her face smooth and perfect and
heartbreakingly beautiful. Vin stepped back, as much out of respect as
surprise, but searching, found no fear of her.
She saw this and smiled. "You do not
fear me?"
"Not much," he managed to say,
realizing that it was true. The mysteries that had harassed him constantly fell
into place now; if anything, relief outweighed any other feeling. The painting,
her words to him, so many things made sense, and he suddenly felt like a fool
for not seeing what must have been painfully evident.
Abigail gazed at him, the inscrutable gaze of
a goddess, holding him suspended in space and time. Vin saw millennia in her
eyes, memories of a time he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, much less
understand fully. New questions began to form; she must have seen them, for she
guided him outside and onto the porch, pulling a chair out for both him and
herself. A gentle hand forced him down into the seat; she took her own and
hitched the chair closer to him, taking one of his hands in hers.
Her touch was electric; Vin almost jumped as
her smooth hand enclosed his roughened one. She began to speak in an unfamiliar
language. It had a lilt, a musical cadence to it that hypnotized him and drew
him into the web it wove. She told him the story of her wanderings over the
earth, how men had worshiped her as so many things she herself was not, how she
fled before the iron and fire of the Romans and sought refuge in the land some
called Tara. Finally, she came to the end of her tale and how she had left
Kieran to come to this new world, and the reason for her staying.
"I haven’t the strength to continue
anymore," she whispered. "There is nowhere in the world untouched by
mankind where I could make my home. I am not a vengeful spirit, Vin Tanner; I
only want to exist somewhere, untroubled and free from persecution... That is
what I am, you know; you yourself have seen it in the People of this land,
driven from their native places because of their skin and the spirits they
worship. When their faith was stripped from them I lost some of my strength...
the sum of it is no longer great enough for me to continue on.
"And I cannot fight anymore... They will
come for me, you know- I know it because this drama has played itself out time
and time again over the course of our Mother’s life. And I know that I cannot
survive this one, unless I have your aid."
The earnestness in her voice surprised Vin,
and he felt fear flicker through him- not fear of her, but fear of those who
would try to hurt her. It came close to anger, really, as he thought once more
about the Army men who laughed as they burnt down sky lodges and tore medicine
bags from the necks of fallen warriors. He wanted to find those who would hurt
her and stop them before they could, but the urge to act was tempered by the
woman in front of him, whose knowing eyes were now filled with trust.
Hesitantly, he reached out to take her in his
arms, uncertain as to how a goddess would react to
such liberties. She reacted much as any other woman would do, melting into his
embrace and burying her head in his chest. As they sat there, the man and the
woman, he whispering nonsensical words of reassurance and stroking her hair,
she murmured one soft, almost diffident request.
"I need you," she said softly, so
softly he could barely hear her, "to believe. Give me that, you and
Ezra."
"Yeah," he whispered in reply.
"Sure thing."
CHAPTER NINE
Josiah had been staking out the livery for a
couple hours, more or less ever since Ezra had hightailed it out of the barn
door with a stirrup still draped over the pommel and the wrong bridle on his
horse. Sanchez had calmly halted the gambler before the horse had gone too far,
adjusted the cheekstrap so that the bit wasn’t
falling out of the horse’s mouth, and righted the stirrup leather. Ezra had
stared at him silently the entire while, impatient questioning in his eyes,
before Josiah had stepped back and allowed him to continue.
Continue he had, mercilessly spurring his
horse into a headlong gallop, leaving Josiah choking on dust and deep in
thought.
That something had Ezra so visibly upset
worried Josiah, and the worry compounded itself when there was a possible link
between Standish’s anxiety and Uncle Isaiah. Once more, Josiah cursed the
temerity of his relatives, who only barged into his life when they sought to
make it miserable. He’d finally found some measure of peace in this place, a
peace which restored itself even after Poplar and his insanity careened through
on their destructive, bloody path through
And now it seemed that, not content with
destroying his nephew’s equilibrium, Uncle Isaiah would also wreak havoc on
that of one of Josiah’s friends. Sanchez wondered over the whole, stilted
conversation in the church, Ezra’s unusual halting questions- and the content
of the questions themselves. He came to the end of their dialogue, played it
through to the conclusion.
"Probably out to investigate the truth
behind the Witch of Wilson’s Pass," Josiah had said. He’d meant it as a
joke; his uncle couldn’t possibly still be obsessing about witchcraft. Even
though he was a dried-up old zealot, Josiah reflected, the man still had some
common sense- and what person in his right mind would pay attention to barroom
chatter?
Ezra hadn’t gotten the joke, though- he’d
gotten upset, and it took a powerful something to make the unexpressive gambler
make a public display of his emotions.
"Probably out to investigate the truth
behind the Witch of Wilson’s Pass."
Josiah knew that Ezra and Vin had gone out
that way a while ago, presumably to find the truth behind the rumors that had
fueled the gossip mill which Vance Slade had been turning enthusiastically for
the past few weeks. The encouragement from Jed Reston, Heywood, and all the
others hadn’t helped. Vin and Ezra had gone though, and had been
less-than-forthcoming about their findings.
Vin had shrugged noncomittally,
Josiah remembered; the tracker’s expression, just as unrevealing as Ezra’s,
hadn’t given anything away- he could have found a dragon in those woods or a
bunch of raccoons for all Josiah could make out. Tanner had been away more than
usual though, Sanchez thought, tallying up the number of days Vin had
volunteered for patrol or had just gone out to be by himself. Given the younger
man’s fondess for the woods, though, and the awful
congestion of dust that dry heat had inflicted upon the town, Josiah decided he
couldn’t find any reason to believe his friend had found something that had
disturbed him in any way.
And Ezra? Josiah laughed to himself, drawing
a curious glance from Thompson and Adderly, both of
whom had dragged the remains of the stagecoach out into the light to reassemble
what they could.
Ezra... Ezra had gambled as he’d always done,
staying up far too late of nights and still fastidiously avoiding cheap drinks.
Josiah thought about the one day not long after the Mercury Jones incident,
when Vin had recovered enough from his bullet wound to start working a bit, and
Standish had stumbled into the saloon nursing a raging hangover and wondering
aloud about the transience and impermanence of life- very un-Ezra musings,
especially for ten in the morning. The resemblance between that day and today
was striking- something had unnerved the gambler, and Josiah aimed to find out
what.
When the small dust cloud off in the distance
materialized into two riders riding abreast of each other, Josiah felt his
hackles go up and nervous anticipation stir in his stomach. It only got worse
as he began to make out J.D. and the formidable man who rode next to him, and
by the time the young man and his older companion halted at the livery fence,
Josiah felt ready to explode.
J.D. saw the fury lurking in Josiah’s eyes
and, knowing the preacher was coming dangerously close to losing his temper,
got out of the way quickly. Josiah didn’t watch the young man go; he had eyes
only for the old man who loomed in front of him, clutching his horse’s reins in
a death grip. As if sensing the charged atmosphere between the two men, the
horse shifted anxiously and pulled on the bit. Uncle Isaiah ignored the horse’s
restiveness, his pale blue eyes fixed on those of his nephew’s.
Josiah met his uncle’s gaze as squarely as he
could, trying to order his thoughts. He felt all of ten years old for a moment
before sternly reminding himself that forty years separated himself from the
kid who’d accidentally set Father deCordova’s
dalmatic alight with a dropped taper. Still... his uncle managed to keep seeing
that clumsy kid with the brilliant mind and bright prospects for a life in the clergy,
but who occasionally skipped off down the trail of heresy to dare ask ‘why?’ of
God.
"Where you been off to, Uncle?" he
asked with deceptive mildness, acutely aware that J.D. was auditing their
conversation from a safe distance, having untacked his
horse but now taking his sweet time about rubbing the creature down.
"Out ridin’,"
responded Uncle Isaiah querulously, gnarled hands wrapping his horse’s reins
around the hitching post. He stepped to the horse’s side to undo the
breastplate and cinch, then gestured for Josiah to take the saddle off.
Josiah did so reluctantly, more out of the
ingrained habit of unquestioning obedience than a desire to be helpful.
"Out ridin’ where?" he pressed, pulling the
saddle off and draping it over the fence.
"Can’t a man go ridin’
without havin’ the Spanish Inquisition brought down
on him?" Uncle Isaiah demanded, his voice shrill and carrying.
"Let’s talk about the Spanish
Inquisition for a moment," Josiah returned with as much coolness as he
could manage. "One of my friends says you’ve been listenin’
to Vance Slade yammerin’ on again about the Witch of
Wilson’s Pass. Thought you had sense enough to see through those things,
Uncle." He remembered once more his idle joke about bars and Slade’s
goings-on, and realized that when it came to witches, Isaiah Sanchez was never
in his right mind. A heavy rock took up residence in his stomach, a rock formed
of fear and foreboding.
"I have," Uncle Isaiah said,
unconsciously polishing the gold cross on his lapel with his thumb. A dirty
thumbprint marred the shining metal right at the intersection of the two beams.
"And what of it?"
"Just thought that you’d gone past all
that foolishness after it almost got you killed in
"She had it comin’,
Josiah," growled Isaiah Sanchez. "She an’ that husband a’ hers, with
their disturbin’ the camp with stories of their god’s
vengeance an’ her killin’ the railroad foreman with
those pagan drugs a’ hers."
"Foreman died from a lung
sickness," grunted Josiah. "Inhalin’
pulverized rock would do that to a person. An’ she wasn’t no witch, Uncle. Just
a woman lookin’ to get by on a little more than what
the Union Pacific was payin’ her. Just like this
woman out by
His uncle drew himself up to his full height;
even with his spine and shoulders stooped by age, Isaiah Sanchez still seemed
to loom above Josiah, and the pale blue eyes shone with an intensity that was
almost frightening.
"I saw her with my own eyes,"
Isaiah Sanchez grated, the words ground between clenched teeth, "talkin’ with a demon familiar, like the Whore of Babylon
with her seven-headed dragon, speakin’ in tongues
like a heathen! Beautiful she was," he continued relentlessly, rough hands
sketching a willowy female form in the air, "like a temptress, like the
harlot that tempts men from the paths of virtue and leads them into ruin. Brown
hair, dressed in a gown that would make a streetwalker in
Josiah, used to his uncle’s hyperbole, let
the tirade wash over him, but cold fury still grew at how goddamned persistent
the man was in this. He took a calming breath and managed to ask, "I
don’t suppose you got any witnesses?"
"The boy... what’s his name..."
"J.D. Dunne," interposed Josiah
impatiently.
Uncle Isaiah glowered at him, ungrateful for
the assistance. "Don’t interrupt, boy," he growled. "Was comin’ up on the name myself, didn’t need your help pointin’ it out. Yes, J.D. Dunne- he saw the whole thing, standin’ right next to me. Ask him if you doubt me, if
you’re so far lost to Almighty God as to doubt your own uncle."
"Well then Uncle," Josiah said
coolly, though he did not feel nearly as confident as he hoped he sounded,
"I suppose the Good Shepherd’s got a lotta searchin’ to do, ‘cause this lamb’s strayed mighty far from
His flock."
"I knew it!" hissed Isaiah Sanchez.
"She’s drawn you into her net!"
"Never met the lady in my life,"
Josiah returned. "Might have to after this, though, if she’s as temptin’ as you make her out to be. Sort of wonder at you lookin’ at her, even though you’re a respectable man of the
cloth an’ all that... If you’ll excuse me now Uncle, I got me a young man needs
talkin’ to." With that, Josiah turned on his
heel and strode off in search of J.D., who’d long since disappeared.
"She’s sunk her claws into him,
too!" shouted Isaiah after the back of his retreating nephew. "I saw
it in his eyes!"
Josiah stopped, whirled, stalked back to his
uncle. Isaiah Sanchez actually shrank a little under the withering heat of his
nephew’s glare. In a low, fierce whisper, he demanded, "Saw what,
Uncle?"
The old man’s mouth worked soundlessly for a
moment before he answered, with a voice strong from the conviction of denial
and growing stronger by the word, "She’s enchanted him too, you know. Saw
his eyes go all far away, imagining what she’d look like naked, how her sinful
softness would feel under his hands, how it would feel to lie down with her in
carnal sin, how it-"
"No, Uncle," retorted Josiah,
"you imagined those things."
With that, Josiah left abruptly, leaving his
uncle suspended in helpless silence.
CHAPTER TEN
J.D. made a hasty escape from the clutches of
Isaiah Sanchez, not wanting to be around the man any more than necessary; the
regret and mental ass-kicking he’d given himself throughout their ride to
"Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live..."
He’d thought to hang around a bit, see what
Josiah would have to say to his uncle; the preacher looked about as happy as a
bear in a trap, seeing J.D. and Isaiah riding up to the livery. In a way, J.D.
supposed, he’d been hoping that Isaiah would at least get some of his own back,
that Josiah wouldn’t let him get away with tromping around the town and making
awful comments about its citizens, or those that lived just outside town,
anyway.
Predictably, his thoughts circled back to the
woman in the clearing, and once more he felt awed, as if he’d stepped in on
some mysterious communion... a rite, Josiah said of such things that took place
only where prying eyes could not- or should not- see them. There hadn’t been
anything forbidding in the young woman dancing, no blood or severed heads or
anything, but J.D. still felt as though he’d blundered, rudely and unforgiveably, into something intensely private.
"Hey, kid, keep weavin’
about like that an’ someone’s gonna pick you up for drunk n’ disorderly."
Buck? Where’d Buck come from?
J.D. blinked, tried to reorient himself. He
repeated his friend’s name aloud, and
"Where’s
"Down by Potter’s, I think. Why?"
Buck’s eyes filled with concern, and J.D. knew he had to get away quickly,
before his friend’s worry overwhelmed him.
"Gotta talk to
him," J.D. mumbled and continued on past Buck, who trailed after him and
pelted him with questions that J.D. fended off as best he could without
answering directly. His mind latched on three things: the woman in the grove,
Isaiah Sanchez, and finding
"Hey,
Now that he was confronted with the moment, and now acutely aware of Buck
standing behind him, words and the thoughts behind them deserted J.D. He cursed
himself for ten kinds of an idiot- where had his mind been, thinking that if he
told
"Oh,
Yeah, right. He could say that and lose any
respect
"Geez, kid, how many cats got your
tongue? Ten?" asked Buck, eyes twinkling good-naturedly despite his
impatient tone. He withdrew a bit at the glower his younger friend directed at
him.
Taking a deep breath, J.D. tried out a
tentative question phrased as a statement, desperately hoping it came out as
casual and unconcerned: "So I guess Isaiah Sanchez is related to Josiah,
huh?"
"He’s my uncle, J.D. I think you know
that," broke in Josiah’s voice from behind him. J.D. whirled, his heart
leaping up to lodge somewhere in his throat, terrified that Sanchez would take
offense at something. Kin could be particular about other people insulting
their own, J.D. knew- God help him if he pissed Josiah off.
"Uh, yeah..." J.D. managed to say,
searching Josiah’s craggy features for any sign of the preacher’s legendary
temper and was relieved to find only a resigned expression on his friend’s
face. "I did," J.D. stammered, voice cracking with relief, "I
did."
"Guess you went out ridin’
with him today," Josiah said neutrally, crossing his arms across his chest
and fixing J.D. with an unreadable look. J.D. could only nod in response to the
statement.
"He told me a few things about your trip," Josiah continued,
seemingly unconcerned by J.D.’s difficulty in speaking, or the presence of the
two men beside them. "Would like to know your side of the story, if you’d
like to tell it. In private, if you want to."
Relief swept through J.D., leaving him
weak-kneed with the sensation. He nodded once more before managing to say,
"Yeah, sure. Sure... that’d be great." Just as he turned to leave
with Josiah and make for the safety of the church,
"Is this something we ought to know
about?" he asked, his voice low but commanding nonetheless.
Josiah appeared to consider the question, and
he finally said: "It is, but I’d like to talk to J.D. about it first, if
you don’t mind." His voice dropped a little, so that he spoke almost under
his breath. "I don’t think he can do anything yet... he’ll need to
rest."
If
And locked it, which startled J.D. as he
heard the heavy click of a padlock snapping shut. The door to the church was
never locked, not even at night. Josiah usually joked that the church had
nothing in it worth stealing- there was no market for wooden pews in the area,
and the collections box was really just an old beer crate Josiah kept hidden
behind a false wall in a back room.
Fear worked its way through J.D.’s gut, as he
sensed that things had suddenly spiraled to a depth he couldn’t descend to.
Isaiah Sanchez’s hellfire-and-brimstone pronouncements immediately invested themselves
with more real hatred and menace that J.D. had originally dismissed as the
over-zealous and somewhat senile ramblings of an old man. That he was related
to Josiah, who could accept a Cherokee shaman more easily than a missionary
made the differences between the two men more striking.
"J.D.," Josiah said, his voice
filled with a seriousness that sent shivers darting down J.D.’s back, "you
have to tell me what happened out there. I swear... I swear I won’t judge you
at all, no matter what you say. Heard the last part of your, uh, conversation
with
"She was so beautiful," J.D.
whispered almost involuntarily. "You shoulda
seen her Josiah... the sun in her hair, the way she moved... Just like music.
Guess Ezra could describe her better, but I ain’t never seen anything more
beautiful in my life. She was dancin’... just dancin’, not doing anything horrible or evil or awful. You gotta believe that, Josiah." The vehemence in his
voice startled J.D. a little.
"I do, Brother Dunne," Josiah said
soberly. "I believe you."
J.D. slouched down into one of the pews and
covered his face with his hands. "I thought I was goin’
crazy... It didn’t feel right to be watching her- felt like spying, you know?
And so after a while, I decided to just turn around and go." It hadn’t
been exactly like that, but it came close enough to the truth; J.D. didn’t want
to make Josiah mad by saying... saying what he thought of Isaiah Sanchez.
The preacher didn’t have a response for that.
Instead, he asked, "You know what you saw was real? Beyond a shadow of a
doubt?"
"I do. Just as real as you n’ me right
here," J.D. responded immediately.
"What’d my uncle have to say?"
Something in Josiah’s eyes said that he already had the general idea of what
Isaiah Sanchez had been thinking the entire time he’d stood there with J.D.,
watching the lovely woman dance, and that he asked J.D. only as a confirmation.
"Said ‘Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live,’" replied J.D., feeling fresh worry at the
words and impulsively asking, "You don’t think that... that he’d try to
hurt her or anythin’? Josiah?"
Josiah had turned away from him to stare out
one of the front windows, his arms once more folded across his chest. The
sunlight filtering through the dirty panes shrouded Josiah in an ominous
silhouette, and when the preacher spoke, the words came low and hard, a bitter
recitation:
"But I have this against you, that you
tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and
beguiling my servants to practice immorality and to eat food sacrificed to
idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her immorality.
Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I
will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her doings..."
Then:
"J.D., we gotta
get the others and tell them what’s going on. I’ll handle
"I’ve got a pretty good idea," J.D.
said, and the look in Josiah’s eyes confirmed that J.D.’s guess was right.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The forest held no fear for him this time; he
rode through it confidently, not even starting at the occasional cry raised by
the wind running through the trees. His horse, as if sensing its rider’s
self-assurance, jogged calmly down the narrow, twisting trail, unconcerned by
the strange, shifting sounds of the forest around it.
Strange, then, how such poise can evaporate;
the moment Ezra saw her there, saw the blue of her dress through the thinning
trees, his confidence evaporated. Many things descended on him at once, a
flurry of thoughts he had attempted with great zeal and industry to push from
his immediate awareness- thoughts that persisted anyway.
"For what do you search, Ezra
Standish?" she asked when first she saw him riding into the clearing, not
bothering to wait until he’d dismounted. She stood alone by the corral fence,
her graying brown hair pulled back in its leather band, an expectant look in
her eyes as if she’d been waiting for him. An uncomfortable sensation pricked
up Ezra’s back, settling somewhere between his shoulders as he considered the
very real possibility that she had.
"For what do you search, Ezra
Standish?" she asked again.
Words deserted him. For a long moment they
stood in silence, the goddess and the man, she serenely waiting for an answer
he couldn’t give.
"I saw... I saw Mr. Tanner on the way
here," Ezra said finally, to break the silence and force his mind from
considering the question she’d presented him with- it was a question that had
haunted him more or less since he’d seen her, seen the painting of the woman
and child on the walls of her house.
No... it had haunted him long before that,
dogging at him in sleep and dreams, enough to remain a shadow in the back of
his mind. It had never gone away, merely lain dormant for a while maybe, but
now it demanded an answer which Ezra didn’t know that he could give.
"I take it you and he had words
together?" Ezra continued, somewhat desperately. "He was most...
adamant in insisting that I come to see you, though I must confess I hardly
needed the encouragement." Ezra thought of the strangely distant look on
the tracker’s face when the two of them had met just beyond the pass, the soft
yet insistent voice that instructed him to seek Ms. Gentry out and speak to
her. "Did you ask him to send me here?"
She smiled softly. "I did not ask him to
send you here- I had a feeling you would come, and I think he knew you
should."
Things had started moving very fast.
"Ms. Gentry," Ezra began, feeling
his way carefully, not wanting to propel the conversation any deeper, "I
believe I am owed some type of explanation... some sort of logical... logical
anything."
Why had words suddenly become so difficult? They’d always come easily,
naturally- after long
years of practice, of course, but those words provided him with a barrier, a
wall as effective as any other.
"A logical explanation," she mused.
"There is very little logic in the heart of all this."
"There’s a logical explanation for
anything," Ezra said curtly.
"Everything? Have you ever given true
thought to the reasons behind your choice to remain here?" Abigail asked
suddenly. "Why you, who could go anywhere and be anything, why remain here
of all places? Give me the logic in that, if you can."
He shook his head helplessly. Why did he
remain? He had agreed to stay and "help", of course, but when had
such a thing ever stopped him before? Never, really; he had never agreed to
stay and help anyone without exacting a considerable price- parts of him still
laughed in half-disbelief at the thought of working for a dollar a day plus
room and board. A dollar a day? Room and board? What demon had possessed him to
agree to such a thing and not try to find a way out of his agreement?
The world remained a wide place, filled with
far more interesting locales, cities in which a man could be a wealthy
financier one moment and a struggling young entrepreneur the next. Why stay in
a town... a place which knew Ezra Standish for Ezra Standish?
She was right- it wasn’t logical.
"You are so close," she whispered,
pain in her eyes- pain for him, he realized. "You are so close..."
"To what?" he demanded, frustrated.
He wanted to grab her by the arms, shake the answers out of her. As if reading
his mind, she smiled sadly and beckoned him over to join her by the fence; it
hit him that he still stood by his horse’s head. Cursing himself for an idiot,
he bent to ground-tie the horse and stepped over to her, propping one elbow on
a fencepost.
"To the answer to all your questions...
there is only one answer, you know, in the end."
"No," he said with false levity.
"No.. I didn’t know that. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a
hint, as you seem to know the answer to a question which I cannot recall ever
asking of myself. I am not in the habit of engaging in dialectic, Ms.
Gentry."
She stared at him, a flat, unreadable
expression that made him uncomfortable. Ezra felt those hazel eyes digging into
his soul- no, not digging; she read him like an open and less-than-praiseworthy
book.
"Faith," she said after that
silent, appraising minute.
His turn to stare now. "Faith?" he
asked, voice rising slightly. "In what?"
"I asked Mr. Tanner to believe in
me," she returned, her face betraying no emotion or reaction to his
outburst. "I would ask the same of you, however much I may know that to be
difficult."
"Might I... might I inquire why you ask
this of me- and why you believe that faith answers any questions I allegedly
have?" Good Lord, what was wrong with him? He could feel his back getting
up, his defenses rising without his having the slightest idea why. Ezra wanted
to speak with her rationally, to sort this strangeness through, but the part of
him that built walls and kept the nonessentials out began to build its walls
once more.
"I ask it of you because it is something
you need... To put it in terms you might understand, it would be a mutually
beneficial arrangement for both of us." Cynicism twisted her mouth.
"A cheapening of faith, and not true faith at all, that last," she
said bitterly. "’Worship me, feed my vanity and I shall give you the answers
you want?’ Hardly real faith at all."
"What is real faith, then, while we’re
about it?"
The hazel eyes frosted over. "Real faith
is faith that is given unreservedly," she said shortly. "Faith is not
commanded, compelled, or forced. It is not manipulated by visions or miracles,
and it does not seek them. It is requested, sought for, and treasured... and is
given freely."
Ezra felt unsure how to respond to that- it
seemed she had spoken to herself, but before he could stop himself he said,
"While I am surprised at your requesting this of me, I wonder that you
asked Mr. Tanner as well- he hardly seems to be a mystic."
"Mystic? No, I agree with you there, but
he does recognize that there are movements in this world which he cannot see,
but instead can feel. He sees tracks in the clouds, knows what put them there,
even though that which created them remains invisible. Worship of a different
sort maybe... the oldest sort." A wistful tone entered her voice.
"Ancient people would venerate the creatures and the trees of their world,
you know. In
"I suppose now you’ll tell me he’s an
innocent," Ezra said, only half-joking. "That a bounty hunter,
buffalo hunter, and hunter of the Lord only knows what else, is an
innocent."
"Innocent, in a sense," she agreed
unexpectedly, seeing the frankly disbelieving look on his face and continuing
before he could ask the obvious question. "Would you agree that there are
many kinds of innocence? The innocence of an infant, of a wild man who had
never seen civilization, the innocence of a young soldier who has not yet seen
his first war... Many would have the world believe innocence is lost with one swordstroke, that it is lost before birth- that it was lost
long ago.
"Perhaps it is," she whispered to
herself before raising her voice to continue, "but the truth is that it is
not so. Anything, any part of the soul, that remains untouched and unchanged no
matter the course life takes... that is innocence. Maybe it’s the same word for
faith, really- it endures, it does not change because it cannot change. It can
be lost, it can never be acknowledged, but it can be found.
"You must find yours, Ezra
Standish."
"I’ve done well enough without it up
until now," Ezra remarked, wanting suddenly to strike himself. She had
laid it out for him in words he never could have reached for, written the sum
of what had carried him through his days and nights without his knowing,
dissected his every argument with ease, and rendered his counterarguments
useless.
"You have," she said. "Fine
clothes, money, good things. Truly, you have done well. Think, Ezra," she
urged. "There have been times in your life when such things could not be
found, when Luck danced from your grasp and sent you spinning on her wheel.
Things are ever such with men- fate wrote it in such a way, and like faith,
that cannot change."
Abigail bent to pick up a handful of sand and
straightening, let the grains run through her fingers. The breeze caught the
falling sand, dispersed it into oblivion. "Yet in compensation," she
whispered, "he was given a knowledge of permanence, the knowing of it. All
things change- the mountains, the stars, all those things man sees as eternal-
yet he sees in them an echoing of the greatest gift the old ones gave to him.
"Faith."
"If it was so great, I wonder that they
made it so difficult to find," Ezra said.
"Things worth having are the hardest to
attain, and there are some who would postpone that having, to ease their way
through the world, to not spend it in search- yet there are those for whom the
search is life. You are the latter of the two, Ezra Standish," Abigail
said, her eyes ancient and knowing beyond all measure. "I have told you
what you search for- there are many who would not have done as much. Go and
find your faith." She gestured toward his horse; Ezra turned to the
creature and picked up the reins, remounted stiffly.
"It is there," she called after his
retreating back. "It is there!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sgeulaiche rolled his eyes, watching Abigail and the man called
Ezra Standish talking by the corral fence. He wondered whatever had possessed
Abigail to take an interest in both Ezra Standish and the one called Vin
Tanner. They were men, and so far as Sgeulaiche could
see didn’t have much more to recommend them than any other man the dragon had
ever met.
He couldn’t blame Abigail, he supposed, for
at least wanting someone to know of her, know what she truly was. A goddess,
yes- Sgeulaiche knew that as well as anyone, but men
had called her by many names, chanting battle prayers to her and laments for
the dead. They had painted her as a virgin and a harlot, a huntress and the
spirit who gives men the gift of wisdom. Some had exalted her as the Mother of
the World, while others made her little more than an elf, a Fair Folk, who
roamed the green hills of her native land. She was all of them and none, just
as she had told Vin Tanner not too long ago.
The dragon sighed, wondering why this had
suddenly become so important to Abigail. It had made his life more difficult,
for Sgeulaiche didn’t like unnecessary effort or
expenditure; the quiet time the two of them had spent in these hills had proved
most enjoyable. Now, with Abigail wanting to see more of those two men (why
didn’t she just let the forest take them? he cried to himself) and considering
going into town- of all the absurd things- he had been kept busy trying to keep
her away from both those two men and that accursed town altogether. That had
been the entire point of destroying the stagecoach- send the men out on a
"wild-goose chase" and keep them from seeing her.
Abigail had been displeased, to say the
least, when she’d found out, and Sgeulaiche’s plan
hadn’t worked anyway. The dragon hissed in vexation; his plans almost always
worked, but this one had inexplicably backfired. Still, he was just a dragon
and not a god, but the failure rankled Sgeulaiche and
he couldn’t do anything except skulk on top of Abigail’s roof and stew in that
same failure for a while.
"If it was so great, I wonder that they
made it so difficult to find," Ezra Standish said, and the dragon rolled
his eyes. This one would not have made it ten steps past the temple gates at
Angkor Wat, with these obstinate questions and
absolute refusal to see what was, to Sgeulaiche, so
manifestly plain. Sgeulaiche, who remembered
appearing to a monk there five hundred years back, laughed at remembering the
way the old man’s eyes had widened and his stick-thin body had toppled to the
floor.
"Things worth having are the hardest to
attain, and there are some who would postpone that having, to ease their way
through the world, to not spend it in search- yet there are those for whom the
search is life. You are the latter of the two, Ezra Standish," Abigail
said, and Sgeulaiche heard the barely-suppressed
irritation in her voice, even though the human most likely did not. Small
suffering of fools, Abigail had- Sgeulaiche could not
blame her for that- and this one seemed to require more instruction than most.
"I have told you what you search for-
there are many who would not have done as much. Go and find your faith."
She gestured toward his horse; Ezra turned to the creature and picked up the
reins, remounted stiffly.
"It is there," Abigail called after
Ezra Standish as he rode away, his back stiff and defiant. "It is
there!"
When Ezra Standish finally disappeared into
the trees- sadly, not to be taken by them,
Sgeulaiche reflected with some disappointment- the
dragon took wing and flew down to where Abigail still stood by the corral
fence. He alighted on the top fence rail next to Abigail, stretching his long,
sinewy body along its length.
The goddess pointedly did not look at him;
she stared out into the forest, her fingers creeping along the folded draping
of her shawl to wrap it more tightly around her body. The dragon waited as
patiently as he could, but while he could wait a century with many others, he
was not accustomed to being made to wait.
"Well?" Sgeulaiche
asked after a tense, frustrated few minutes.
"Well what?" Abigail retorted,
still not looking at him. "I have helped him all I can."
"Obstinate, block-headed,
wall-eyed..." Sgeulaiche would have kept on, if
Abigail had not turned to him with fire in her eyes and a reprimand.
"Give over, Sgeulaiche,"
she commanded, and the dragon grew quiet. "You know many things, Dragon,
but I believe that you do not know what it is to search. You stay here under my
protection, share my home, and in exchange for what? Idle days with the
occasional trip outside to destroy a mortal’s property." There was no
mistaking what she meant by that, but Sgeulaiche
refused to be cowed.
"You do not know either, lady," Sgeulaiche said as calmly as he could.
"I do," she said abruptly. "I
search for a home where I can live in peace. This time, I thought I had found
it- apparently, I was wrong. Isaiah Sanchez will be coming soon."
Sgeulaiche sighed- he hated it when she changed the topic of
conversation in such a way, especially when he could not figure out a way to
change it back. The one called Isaiah Sanchez- Sgeulaiche
had seen him, him and the younger man they called "J.D."- would prove
troublesome, as many of his ilk had before him. The Spanish Inquisition, Caccini and Lorini, Anytos, the men and women of
"Very well, then," Sgeulaiche said resignedly. "What do we do?"
"We will believe, hope, and endure, I
suppose," Abigail said, allowing herself a slow shrug, knowing that much
of her life now depended on the two men to whom she had entrusted so much. Her
ill temper seemed to have disappeared; a languid hand ran itself along the
scales of Sgeulaiche’s back, and the dragon paused in
his soft hissings of delight to answer her.
"That’s what that Paul fellow said about
love, you know, in some dusty old letter," Sgeulaiche
remarked.
"Is that so?" Abigail half-asked,
smiling, remembering the Tarsan fondly, thinking on a
bright day by the
Isaiah Sanchez slunk around the far side of
the saloon. He had studiously avoided his nephew and that young whipper-snapper who’d ridden with him earlier that day.
Poor lad, badly misled- no doubt by those blasphemous Cherokee teachings Isaiah
Sanchez’s brother had allowed his son to indulge in. Well, that would be fixed
in time, Sanchez reckoned. In this life, or in judgment at the start of the
next.
He had decided upon his course of action the
moment he had seen that witch-woman dancing in the glade. Sin informed itself
in all her movements, carnality lent sensuousness to already-tainted flesh. The
devil had run his fingers through her hair, making it dance in enticement. She
reeked of depravity, corruption roiled beneath skin that glowed and would,
Sanchez knew, be petal-soft if he touched it.
Something stirred down deep in his belly, and
Sanchez tried to banish it to the demands of the moment. He had to find Vance
Slade and his cronies- the foregone conclusion placed them in the saloon, of
course- and plot his next move. Even as he thought of what he needed to do, the
remembered sight of the girl dancing clad only in thin silk and sunlight made
his blood boil.
Those thoughts threatened to consume him, but
the providential appearance of Vance Slade in the back door of the saloon
spared him from the devil’s clutches. Slade stared at Sanchez, goggle-eyed and
owlish, from over the neck of his beer bottle.
"’Ey, Mishter Sanchez... mean, Father Sanchez," slurred
Slade, waving a comradely hand at the old preacher. Slade lost his balance and
Isaiah had to support him, lest he fall off the stairs.
"Thank you, Father San... Sanchez,"
Slade hiccuped gratefully.
"Do not mention it," Sanchez
replied stiffly. "Come with me, Mr. Slade, I have something I’m wantin’ to speak to you about."
"Shure, shure," Slade agreed, nodding. He stumbled down off
the stairs and half-walked, half-stumbled alongside Isaiah Sanchez, who led him
out a little distance from the buildings and any prying eyes before he stopped
the man and swung Slade so that the drunk man directly faced him. Slade’s eyes
tracked from side to side across Sanchez’s face, as if following the erratic
path of some moving thing that only he could see.
"I have seen the Witch of Wilson’s
Pass," Sanchez whispered.
All the alcohol seemed to drain directly out
of Slade’s body; his eyes widened even more and his mouth worked soundlessly
before he asked in a hushed voice, "Are... are you sure?"
"Of course I’m sure, man!" Sanchez
grated. "Be glad, Mr. Slade, that you got out of the pass alive that day
your team left you stranded there. She is a demon, a monstrosity disguised as a
beautiful girl, a harlot who will slaughter you for her bloody rituals, destroy
your living soul and send it to hell, then dance upon your bones. She would do
that to any man, woman, or child unlucky enough to find themselves trapped
there... and perhaps she will venture here, here to
"Good Lord," Slade rasped. Terror
blanched his tanned, well-worn features.
"He will be with us in this, as in all
things," Sanchez told the lumberman. "We have the armor of God, the
shield of the Holy Book to protect us- this witch cannot stand against such
righteousness. You must hurry, gather the men and women of this town who will
fight with us against her."
Slade nodded eagerly, anxious to get away.
Sanchez forestalled him; the lumberman stared at the fiery-eyed old preacher,
mesmerized.
"Do not tell the seven men of this town
what we will do," Sanchez said slowly, filling his words with command.
"Some of them are taken in by her wiles, they may seek to aid her. Go,
tell the men and women of this town we will meet tonight, under the aegis of
God, and destroy the witch." Sanchez looked up at the sky; the afternoon
had begun to darken to evening, the sun well past its zenith and declining to
the west.
"Yes, sir," mumbled Slade in
terrified agreement; Sanchez released the man’s sleeve, and Slade darted away.
Isaiah Sanchez watched Vance Slade disappear
back into the saloon, smiling in satisfaction. He had counted on Slade to tell
the saloon first, and word would- as the word always did- spread to the rest of
the town. Sanchez knew enough of the town to know that the citizens were either
indifferent to this witch or were terrified of her; both would work to his
advantage, in the end.
Of course, word would reach those seven
peacekeepers- one of whom, Sanchez knew, would be his nephew. The law would be
disregarded though, by fifty vengeful and passionate people bent on
destruction, and the seven did not seem like the type of peacekeepers who would
harm civilians, no matter how riled up they got. Sanchez smiled.
It would all go well.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Vin couldn’t head back to town straightaway- the prospect of having to talk with people and deal with his thoughts at the same time frightened him a little, and so he made his way to where he’d parked his wagon just outside town limits, wanting to be close but not inside the town itself.
He pulled all his gear off Peso and tethered the horse nearby; the horse, either not sensing or not caring about his rider’s preoccupation, unconcernedly bent his head and began to crop grass.
After tossing his gear into the jumble of equipment, mementos, and odd-and-ends that made up the interior of his wagon, Vin pulled himself up on the wagon’s driver’s seat, grabbed the canteen of water he kept stashed under it, and tried to think; instead, he found himself just watching Peso as the horse flicked away flies and moved a bit closer to the wagon. Vin briefly wondered how flies could flourish in such heat, when every other living thing got dragged down by it, but then his thoughts turned elsewhere, heading back to the cabin in a clearing by Wilson’s Pass.
"I need you," Abigail had whispered to him, and he winced at remembering the way his heart had leapt within him; it hadn’t seemed right to react that way, to three words of unknown import coming from a woman who was far more than what she seemed. On the ride back, he had analyzed- or attempted to analyze, rather- that sensation, and found he couldn’t come up with any reasonable explanation, save one, and it was really no explanation at all.
God, he should talk to Josiah.
"I need you to believe. Give me that, you and Ezra."
And he had answered her honestly- he did believe in her, believed in the magic of her as firmly as he believed in anything. More so, he decided after a moment’s somewhat bitter reflection; he’d never been one for faith, never practiced much in the way of religion. How did this belief in her come so easily?
He couldn’t say. Fellow feeling, maybe?
"There is nowhere in the world untouched by mankind where I could make my home," she had said in that mysterious language which he’d understood as well as his own tongue, in a voice so haunted and sad it tore at him. "I am not a vengeful spirit, Vin Tanner; I only want to exist somewhere, untroubled and free from persecution... That is what I am, you know; you yourself have seen it in the People of this land, driven from their native places because of their skin and the spirits they worship. When their faith was stripped from them I lost some of my strength... the sum of it is no longer great enough for me to continue on.
"And I cannot fight anymore..."
The naked pleading in her eyes as she told him that simple, terrible truth would haunt him forever, he felt. Vin knew something of being hunted, harried from place to place and finally finding hope and ease in one land- and knew the fear she had, for that same fear remained rooted him; the fear, the almost certain knowledge that peace would end, that the past and the hunters would catch up and send him spiraling back into a chaos he’d never sought and always fled from.
"You’re lucky you ain’t got to deal with shit like this," Vin informed the horse, his ignored him and continued to eat.
"What shit?" asked J.D. as he appeared almost out of nowhere.
Only Vin’s sharp intake of breath and a twitch of hand in the direction of his sidearm gave away his startlement. He slanted J.D. a reproving look from under his hatbrim, and the younger man fidgeted under that unreadable gaze. "You mind not doin’ that?" Vin asked mildly.
"Sorry, Vin," J.D. apologized softly and then asked, gesturing to the space next to Vin on the driver’s seat, "There room up there for one more?"
"Yup." Vin moved over a little to give J.D. more room, and the young sheriff hauled himself up onto the seat next to Tanner, who wordlessly offered him the canteen. J.D. took it but didn’t drink; instead, he stared fixedly at it, drumming his thumbs on the worn leather. Vin saw struggle deep in the kid’s eyes, the silent working and re-working out of a problem J.D. wasn’t sure if he could vocalize.
At last, J.D. seemed to come to a decision and asked, "How long’ve you known her?"
"Met
her when Ezra an’ I went out to
J.D. just nodded and then continued with the interrogation. "Were ya ever gonna tell any of us?"
Vin opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again; he’d never even thought to tell any of his friends about what he and Ezra had seen there. Part of him wanted to say that what they had found- a middle-aged woman who liked to paint and hardly seemed like the witch everyone made her out to be- didn’t warrant discussion among the seven, and besides, no one had asked. He said this, and J.D. seemed to accept the reason.
"When you were ridin’ out with Mr. Sanchez," Vin said after a moment, "Were you goin’ out to see her?"
"Yeah," J.D. said hoarsely, and Vin could see that inner battle raging in J.D.’s face. "That’s... uhm, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, really."
Well,
Vin had guessed that; his hackles had risen the moment he saw Isaiah Sanchez
riding next to J.D. on the trail earlier that day, and Abigail’s words had all
but confirmed his suspicion. "Kinda figured you
were gonna come ‘round sooner ‘r later," Vin said softly. "You see
her? I mean, really see her?" Vin emphasized ‘really’ as much as he dared,
waited to see if J.D. got the hint.
J.D. did, and nodded, hazel eyes flicking to meet Vin’s blue ones for the space
of a second before looking away to intently study the canteen. "Yeah, I
did," he whispered. "She was... she was beautiful, Vin."
"I know, J.D." Vin saw her before his eyes once more, young and so beautiful it made his heart ache to think of her.
"She was dancin’ in the sun, Vin," J.D. continued as if Vin hadn’t spoken. "Just like my mother used to dance with me... But I don’t think Mr. Sanchez saw the same thing." His turn now to fix Vin with a look of his own, to try to drill his thoughts into Vin’s brain by the force of his gaze.
Vin nodded and looked off into the distance. "Figured he would," he said. "She’s many things, J.D., to almost as many people. We see what we want to in her, I think. Me, I think ol’ Mr. Sanchez don’t see much good in her."
"He just about called her a witch, Vin," J.D. rasped. "Said it right aloud, like he was seein’ what Vance Slade calls her all the time. She can’t be a witch, Vin!"
"She is, to him," Vin replied. "You remember that missionary? Moseley?" J.D. nodded, and Vin kept on, his right hand drifting up to touch the medicine bag that hung around his neck: "Indians, they believe in medicine- not like Nathan’s medicine, I mean, but... Hell. ‘S hard to explain it. Every person, everything got its own medicine, sort of a secret thing. Power, maybe- there really ain’t a proper English word for it. Makes the world a magic place, medicine; everythin’ got its own secret in it, an’ some you find out an’ some you don’t. Moseley, he never saw it like that; called it evil, heathen stuff an’ his own daughter ended up dead for it. He saw this world full’a things he could use, people he could change to start thinkin’ the way he thought. Didn’t see no medicine, even though it was right under his nose.
"She is that medicine, J.D.; she is what she is, but she’s somethin’ diff’rent to everyone. It don’t make much sense- ain’t for explainin’, I think. Somethin’ you just gotta know, in here." The tracker finished his speech with a soft, yet emphatic, tap on J.D.’s chest.
"You believe in that medicine stuff, Vin?"
"Makes a lot more sense to me than a bunch ‘a other things."
J.D. barked a short laugh and grinned at the sharpshooter, who returned it. "Guess it does," J.D. said ruefully. He blinked a couple times and said, "Josiah thinks his uncle’s plannin’ somethin’. He wanted me t’ get you n’ Ezra. Guess I got you, so we gotta get to the sheriff’s office n’ find Ezra later."
"Kinda figured that old coot was plannin’ somethin’," Vin muttered. "Didn’t seem like the kinda person who’d let somethin’ like this go for long without doin’ somethin’ about it. Don’t think we’re gonna have to find Ezra later, though."
"How you figure that, Vin?"
Vin
nodded in the direction of
"Head out for what?"
"Ain’t your business, J.D.," Vin said firmly, but softened at the chastened expression on the younger man’s face. "Ain’t mine either, for that matter. We’ll just wait here for him n’ head on back together." With that, and without waiting for J.D.’s agreement, Vin hitched himself around on the driver’s seat to face in the direction of the approaching rider.
The two waiting men didn’t have to wait long; Ezra came at a quick canter and seeing them, changed direction from the livery to the wagon, and pulled up in front of them. Vin carefully drew an unconcerned mask across his face, but worry elicited by the haggard expression on the normally serene gambler’s face made it difficult. Ezra’s pale skin had gone almost waxy and his eyes had a far-away look in them; Vin had seen men get expressions like that after being hit in the head.
Maybe he had, Vin thought. Gotten hit in the head, or the heart- maybe both.
"Hey,
Ez," he said as casually as he could manage. "J.D. says
"Indeed," Ezra said flatly. "Well, we shouldn’t keep our esteemed leader trapped in suspense, should we?" With that, he turned his horse on its haunches and made for the livery, his back still straight, as if defying something. Vin, even though he never claimed to understand Standish very well, sensed the gambler hadn’t just gotten hit- he’d gotten walloped pretty good.
"You okay, Ez?" he asked, jumping down from the wagon and striding after Ezra.
"Never better, Mr. Tanner," Ezra muttered, his voice hollow and unconvincing. "Never better."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ezra had secretly dreaded receiving the summons to join the rest of the seven- summons he’d felt were long-due in coming. That Vin had told him did not make him feel any better, even though he had hoped it would. He and Tanner shared Abigail’s secret, and Ezra had hoped to talk to the sharpshooter alone before the admittedly strange events became any stranger, and before those events came at him even faster than they seemed to now.
"J.D.," he heard Vin say, "head over to the office n’ tell everyone me n’ Ezra’ll be there soon. I got to talk to him first." J.D. must have nodded his assent- Ezra didn’t hear him say anything- and trotted off, his shadow lengthening behind him as the setting sun stretched shadows out. "Hey, Thompson, you mind steppin’ out for a bit?" This to the hostler, who mumbled his agreement and headed off to the corral.
"You wanted to talk to me, Mr. Tanner?" Ezra asked as he dismounted and began to fiddle with the cinch strap; Vin had positioned himself by the horse’s head, and showed no inclination to move.
"Thought you might be wantin’ t’ talk to me," Vin responded, nothing in his voice of judgment of Ezra’s abstracted mental state or victory at reading Ezra’s desires through his face. Standish winced before he could hide it- what would Mother think of this situation? he wondered helplessly.
"I... I merely sought to inquire after your discussion with Ms. Gentry," Ezra said, trying to sound as if he just asked after the weather. "I understood from her that you had quite a tete-a-tete."
"Tete-a-what?"
"It means, ‘head to head’ in French. An intimate discussion, private conversation."
Vin flushed at the word ‘intimate’; Ezra saw it, and Vin in turn saw the gambler bristle with indignation. Quickly he said, "Weren’t like that, Ez. Geez. We did talk..."
"About what, Mr. Tanner?"
"Faith," Vin said, staring directly at Standish, and Ezra felt a return of the discomfort that had gripped the two of them when they had discussed- or tried to discuss- the paintings on Ms. Gentry’s wall. Something stirred in him at the simple word, and he wondered what it was.
"Faith is not commanded, compelled, or forced. It is not manipulated by visions or miracles, and it does not seek them. It is requested, sought for, and treasured... and is given freely," she had said just earlier that afternoon, although it seemed years ago, the time between then and now being spent in the search of denial, a way to let Ezra work past her words and how closely they had cut.
"She knows it don’t come easy for you, Ez," Vin said quietly, the drawl hesitant and almost inaudible. "But she’s askin’ ya anyway, ‘cause you, me, n’ J.D. are pretty much the only hope she’s got. She don’t deserve what’s gonna happen to her, what Sanchez n’ Slade’ll do to her. All she wants is peace, Ez- you got to believe that, at least, even if’n ya don’t believe in her."
"Do you believe in her, Mr. Tanner? Really?"
"I do, Ez." Vin’s blue eyes met Ezra squarely, no doubt in them.
He stared at the younger man before him, remembering Abigail’s words with a flash of jealousy.
Jealousy? Why was he jealous of Mr. Tanner, of all people?
Ezra had no idea.
"Mystic?
No, I agree with you there, but he does recognize that there are movements in
this world which he cannot see, but instead can feel," Abigail had told
him, and her words had instantly struck him as true; Vin had always seemed in
tune with his world, content with it despite its flaws and difficulties- and
that, finally acknowledged, needled Ezra with its unfairness. How could someone
so young, who knew the evils of mankind and had seen injustice more times in his
short life than many men knew in all their days, still see what Ezra had always
denied existed?
Good things, things that endured, the permanence that came with mountains and
stars.
"He sees tracks in the clouds, knows what put them there, even though that which created them remains invisible. Worship of a different sort maybe... the oldest sort."
Vin endured the gambler’s scrutiny without comment, and Ezra finally turned his attention back to the horse. He took the currycomb that Vin offered him and perfunctorily swiped the day’s dirt and sweat off the creature before leading it to its stall. Vin stepped aside to let him pass, and Ezra felt grateful- and guilty- to be free from Vin’s presence and its attendant reminder that Ezra Standish did not have nearly the firm grasp on the world he had always imagined he had.
Tracks in the clouds... Ezra had looked up at the sky a few times on the way back, just to see if he could see the tracks Abigail had told him about. He saw clouds, some thin mare’s tails high up in the atmosphere, others lower and thicker lamb’s-wool. Part of him insisted he knew very well what made those clouds look the way they did- wind. Wind, relentless logic insisted. It’s wind, not... not the breath of gods, or some spirit tramping around up there.
But still... it could be...
Ezra took as long as he could settling the horse in; by the time he bolted the door behind him and turned to collect his tack, Vin had disappeared. Sighing and trying to gird himself against the questions he knew would eventually come, Ezra stowed his equipment and headed for the sheriff’s office.
When he got there, he felt as though he walked into a tribunal; the others had already assembled.
Vin sat on top of J.D.’s desk and the kid had claimed the chair, his shoulders hunched as if under some invisible weight, and he faced slightly away from Buck- a bizarre development there.
"Gentlemen," Ezra said, tipping his hat and forcing himself to sound as unconcerned as possible. The others returned his greetings absently, and Ezra breathed a sigh of relief as he took a chair and waited for someone to say something, to ask a question, to condemn him, to demand explanations.
Instead, Larabee said, "Guess there’s somethin’ goin’ on that has a few people upset."
J.D.
looked up, his eyes darting from Vin to Ezra to Josiah and back again. For a
minute, none of the seven volunteered any information until Josiah said,
"Like I told you,
"And this particular person might be...?" Buck asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"The Witch of Wilson’s Pass," J.D. said abruptly, just as Vin said, "Abigail Gentry."
"So that’s where you were today?" Buck demanded, turning to J.D., who nodded shamefacedly. "Good Lord, boy! You had me wonderin’ where in all creation you’d been gallopin’ off to an’ you tell me you hauled yourself out to see the Witch of Wilson’s Pass?"
"I did!" J.D. exclaimed defensively, glowering at Buck. "Vin and Ezra know about her, too, an’ she’s in danger."
"From
what?"
"From who," Josiah corrected and then added, "My uncle."
"That ol’ coot?" Buck grunted, and Josiah grinned at the descriptive.
"Yup, that’s him. My uncle... he ain’t what you’d call very tolerant of different beliefs. Downright hostile, I guess, an’ maybe that just begins t’ describe it; he makes Mr. Moseley look open-minded, an’ I’ve known Uncle Isaiah all my life, so I guess I’m qualified to say that."
"What makes you say she’s in danger?" Nathan asked. "Other than the rumors ol’ Vance carries on about, it don’t sound like she’s done nothin’ to hurt anyone or anythin’. Don’t even rightly sound like a witch to me- even though some people decided to wait til just now to tell us she really exists."
"She ain’t a witch," Vin broke in, "an’ it don’t matter much what she really is, but Josiah’s right- she is in danger, an’ it ain’t nothin’ of her own doin’ that’s brought this on her- just someone who cain’t see the good in her. He n’ J.D. saw her today, just afore I rode out there."
"That
true, J.D.?"
"I tried t’ talk to you earlier," J.D. mumbled, "when I first got back, but I... I didn’t even know if I’d really seen what I’d seen, or if I was just goin’ crazy. I told Josiah n’ Vin, guess I’ll tell you all now..." He took a deep breath; Ezra had to admire the young man, and wondered where he’d summoned up the courage from to tell them this. "She’s beautiful- the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. There ain’t no harm in her, I know that just as surely as I know anything, but ol’ Mr. Sanchez called her a witch, said somethin’ about not sufferin’ her to live."
"J.D.’s
right," Vin said at length, his voice strong and carrying. "Chanu almost got lynched, just as much for his bein’ an Indian n’ different as for what Moseley said he
did to Claire. This ain’t no diff’rent,
"Ez?
What do you think?"
"I think..." Ezra’s mind worked fast, sorting through every conceivable reply he could make that could convey his typical blas鍊 attitude, and ultimately fastening on a halfway-decent one, "I think that we should put a stop to any plans Slade or the elder Mr. Sanchez may entertain about staging a riot either in town or out on the trail; to allow them free rein would seriously undermine our authority in the town."
"Not
about that, Ezra,"
Damn the man. Ezra cursed inwardly and fought to keep his face as devoid of emotion as possible. He had no idea what he thought of Ms. Gentry, had not the slightest idea on how to even begin sorting out how he felt toward her and what she represented.
"As a gentleman, I believe that we owe protection to those who cannot protect themselves," Ezra said finally, and was rewarded with nods and murmurs of assent from the others- but the vaguely sad, disappointed light in Vin Tanner’s eyes took away Ezra’s victory.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As the seven men inside the sheriff’s office began to plot out strategy, a lone rider astride a nondescript bay made a slow path down the center of the town’s main road. A cloak, strange apparel for the area and even stranger because of the sweltering heat, covered the rider’s head and hid the face, but the delicate gloved hands holding the horse’s reins indicated the rider’s sex. Men stepped out of the way with respectful greetings, which were returned in kind; women called out hello’s as they passed by on errands. Children stared, enraptured, sensing something of which their elders remained unknowing.
"Hey, hey, Pa... you see that lady back there?" asked David McConnery, twisting around to point to the woman’s retreating back.
"Yes, David- it’s not polite to point," Mr. McConnery said, more to humor his son than anything.
"What about her?"
"I bet she’s nice."
"Hm. C’mon... let’s get you home."
The woman, keen ears overhearing the exchange, smiled to herself; her horse shook his head and snorted, as if sharing her amusement. After riding almost the length of the town, she pulled the horse up in front of the sheriff’s office and dismounted, tying the horse to the hitching post. Dark eyes gave her something approximating a dirty look at the ignominy of being tied up; the woman returned the horse’s stare steadily- the horse blinked and looked away.
"Behave," the woman hissed.
A derisive snort answered her- the woman rolled her eyes and stepped up onto the porch, pausing to square her shoulders and summon her determination, then stepped inside and pulled the hood of her cloak back, loosing the wild length of her mahogany hair and unshading the brilliance of her face.
From a distant corner, a shadow-enshrouded figure watched her, but she did not see it as she opened the office door and stepped inside.
At her entrance, the conversation between the seven men cut off as if by a knife, and seven pairs of eyes swung to stare at her. Very little frightened the woman, but their collective scrutiny gave her pause for a moment. She recognized three of the men, all of whom seemed to struggle unsuccessfully with varying degrees of amazement; the others, none of whom she knew, stared almost unabashedly.
One of the men, clad all in black with a silver-studded gunbelt, broke the silence first and asked- or rather, started to ask, "Can I help-"
Vin Tanner cut him off, standing up and striding over to the woman’s side. The amazement had vanished, replaced now by an almost clinical coolness. "Ms. Gentry, what’re you doin’ here?" he asked, his voice low.
Abigail
met the fierce blue gaze with hazel eyes filled with no small amount of
determination. "I told you earlier that people would come for me.
Apparently, you chose to heed my words," she said, looking around at the
six other men in the room. "They would bring fire and iron against me,
against the forest I call my home. I... I could not see the land suffer because
of me, could not see it slain out of the ignorance of the men who would journey
there to burn a witch."
"The land?" Nathan asked.
"Yes," Abigail affirmed, turning away from Vin to regard the healer. "It’s as much a living thing as the people you heal, Mr. Jackson."
Nathan
started at hearing her give his profession and his name, and glanced at Vin.
"You tell her about us, Vin?" Tanner shook his head, and
"If you’re not a witch, lady, what are you? Vin, Ezra, and J.D. here are havin’ a hell of a time agreein’, when you can get ‘em to talk about it."
A mysterious smile worked its way across her lips. "I am many things to many people," she said softly, and a hush descended across the room as her voice rose and fell in a hypnotic lilt. "What I am to young Mr. Dunne is not what I am to Ezra Standish, or Vin Tanner, or Isaiah Sanchez. I am all of these things, and as I have told Vin Tanner, I am none of them."
"Don’t
see why you need our help, and I don’t see why we should help you,"
"Power
is nothing if it’s not acknowledged,
"And what would that need be, ma’am?" asked Josiah, staring at her.
She returned Josiah’s gaze levelly. "Joseph of Arimathea aided Jesus on the cross, Isaiah Sanchez’s nephew," Abigail said, no inflection in her voice, but Josiah’s face twitched and he looked down, away from her. "I ask that you aid me once, and aiding one of my people is no small thing. There is no magic, no mystery, no dark rite that would bind you to me- only your consent. A common enough thing, and one that I will not compel."
Abigail
had given her last argument; she could not persuade or induce cooperation from
any of them, not in this place, where she came pleading like the small folk for
cake and milk. Her pride stung a little, to rely so heavily on any of these
seven, to have her existence hang on the balance of their choices. Still, she
doubted she could sway Vin Tanner or J.D. Dunne, however strong their belief in
her. Stone-stubborn the both of them, Tanner just like Kieran in his
persistence.
One long, silent moment passed.
"Can’t
make you guys do this,"
"Damn,
Abigail smiled.
"Guess I’m with Buck," Nathan said slowly. "Don’t know if I understand all of this, but well... hell." He grinned ruefully as words deserted him. "Josiah probably has a Bible quote for it stuffed up his sleeve somewhere."
"’Yea by grace are ye saved, through faith,’" Josiah murmured, favoring Nathan with a slight smile before regaining his seriousnes and addressing Abigail. "Ma’am, it sounds like you know my uncle pretty well, or maybe the kind of person he is... Don’t want to see him win again." That comment got mystified looks from his friends, but the look on Josiah’s face indicated he would not elaborate.
Abigail knew of what he spoke, though, saw it in his heart- a Chinese woman accused of witchery, a lynching by hysterical white workers, a rebellion that saw a man’s body almost mortally crushed under a rail paling, a young man left to help care for the injured man and to wonder bitterly why that man had not died.
Three
remained- two perhaps; the steel in Vin Tanner’s eyes, tempered only by concern
for her, gave his answer as plainly as any words. It seemed that
"Ez..." the anguish in Vin’s voice found itself mirrored briefly in Ezra’s face. The tracker left Abigail’s side, strode over to crouch next to the gambler, who eyed him with something between plain uncertainty and a deep fear. Tanner lowered his voice to an intense whisper meant for the two men alone to hear, but Abigail heard it nonetheless.
Vin paused to gather breath and launched into his speech. "I know you ain’t sure about all this. I know it scares ya somethin’ fierce, that doin’ this thing ain’t in keepin’ with what you’d have us think of ya, that maybe we’ll start to thinkin’ Ezra Standish actually gave a damn about some crazy witch-lady who ain’t what no one thinks she is. You said you would help her earlier, but you didn’t give the right reason for it. You know the reasons why you should help her, Ezra- I’m bettin’ she gave them to ya, when you saw her."
Ezra Standish stared blankly at Vin Tanner, amazement and fear writ large across his face.
Tanner’s mouth firmed, and Abigail saw that he would keep after Ezra until he caved in or died, one of the two. Just like Kieran. Ezra’s lips moved in silent speech- in affirmation or negation, Abigail couldn’t tell.
The
time for Ezra’s reply was stolen, though, by a hammering at the office door.
Eight pairs of eyes turned toward the door, but
"Okay, here’s what we’re doin’," he began, running his eyes over their small stock of weapons- just two rifles, in addition to their sidearms. "Vin and Buck, get one of them rifles each and take point. Josiah n’ Nathan, I want you next to Ms. Gentry. Me, Ezra, an’ J.D.’ll clear out the crowd up front. Got it?" Six nods indicated agreement- not that Larabee would have tolerated anything else, now that he had taken charge of the situation.
Abigail stood by, trying to hide her own fear at being rendered so completely ineffectual. She told herself that she had come for a reason, that her survival rode on these men- that they would take care of her. The eternal pride of her kind screamed in fury and frustration at that thought, that she should be so dependent, brought so low, be so fearful. Suddenly, she thought of Sgeulaiche, tied up outside.
"Oh, sweet Mother," she whispered through the fingers she had raised to her mouth, as if to keep the words inside. "Sgeulaiche..." The presence outside the office door pounded again, the wood of the door almost buckling under the force of several heavy blows.
"
"All
right, boys,"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They opened the door and stepped out into late twilight, lit only by the dying sun, the newborn stars, and the baleful lights of the crude torches held by fifty men and women. The fire shone on pale, frightened faces and the shining barrels of guns. Just outside the fringe of the group, three men grimly held onto a bay horse that reared and plunged to get free.
For a moment, it seemed that no one would step forward to challenge the authority of the five men standing on the porch, but Isaiah Sanchez detached himself from the anonymous gathering and strode forward, brandishing a torch of his own as well as a cross and a Bible.
"Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live!" he shouted at
"Abigail
Gentry is no witch,"
"Like hell we will!" shouted Vance Slade from the safety of the crowd. A few voices echoed similar sentiments; emboldened, Sanchez continued his attack.
"Bring the witch out, Larabee, and let her answer for her crimes," Isaiah Sanchez demanded, emphasizing his words with stabs of the torch.
"Never
heard of no crimes bein’ committed,"
If
Isaiah Sanchez heard the barely-restrained fury in Larabee’s words, or saw it
in the faces of the four other men on the porch, he didn’t give any indication
of it. "The Bible says ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the
sin of divination, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.’ Would you
encourage such evilness in your citizenry,
"Not
seein’ much in the way of deviancy here, save for
some folks who don’t know to go home when they’re told,"
"This town needs a cleansing!" shouted Sanchez, seeing that Larabee would not be swayed; he turned to address his exhortations to the crowd behind him. "You have heard what the Witch of Wilson’s Pass would do. Would you have her continue to sin, to spit in the eye of God, with the approval of these men... these ruffians? Would you sacrifice your children to her, if these men told you to?"
"No!" the mob bellowed as one. Behind them, the bay horse increased its struggles, shrieking its fear and defiance as the three men holding it.
"Better those who aid her in her evil die with her!" Sanchez continued, his raspy voice not wavering in the least. "Better she and all those she has tainted with the corruption of her touch be burned, that their memory be wiped from the face of the earth!"
With another ear-splitting shriek, with a cry no animal or horse should make, the bay horse flung itself up and to the side.
"Sgeulaiche!" Abigail shouted desperately, breaking
free from the protective curtain of Josiah and Nathan and rushing outside,
pushing past
Too late- she had not had time enough to compel him, and did not know that she could have. Three times’ saying was needed to compel anything magical, and those three times she did not have- just one of them, and insufficient to even distract Sgeulaiche from his course.
The bay horse that the men held suddenly began to transform; its neck snaked out, scales taking the place of horse hide, the legs shortened and the hooves divided into five sharp claws. Two wings, wide and leathery, broke through the creature’s sides, catching the air and beating to create a mighty wind that fanned dust al around it. The mane remained, but it fell over a long scaly neck and it disappeared to uncover a sinister reptilian face, with two black eyes that gleamed coldly in the light that gathered in them.
"Holy Mother!" exhaled one of the men, his face gone ghostly pale in the moonlight, stepping back and falling over his own feet. Another, still with something of his wits about him, raised his rifle and fired, taking the dragon through the neck. Sgeulaiche howled with rage and pain, whipped his tail out to catch the man across the chest. The man toppled to the ground, crying out and clutching broken ribs.
One man remained between Sgeulaiche and his full revenge. A cold, feral eye turned to fix on the lone, hapless creature who held a broken lead rope in his hands, the only weapon he carried.
"Sgeulaiche!" shouted Abigail again, trying to call off her familiar from inflicting any bloodshed.
The dragon hissed in vexation but took wing, his dark form quickly melting into the blackness of night. She watched as Sgeulaiche disappeared into the darkness, not seeing the old man who had seen her, who now drew his arm back to throw the torch he held. Only his bellowed curse broke her from her trance, but she merely stood transfixed.
"In
the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, I command
you-"
She merely stood transfixed as Isaiah Sanchez loosed the torch he held, stood
frozen as the bright missile hurtled toward her, stood riveted even as Tanner
screamed a warning, a plea, to the closer man to help her.
"Ezra!" shouted Vin from his corner, raising his rifle to cover the gambler.
The shout galvanized Standish from his own reverie. He saw Tanner, saw Isaiah Sanchez, the torch, the woman, and the space between all of them.
Time slowed for him, slowed to a crawl in the time it took him to dive forward and collide with the woman, to feel the wicked heat of the torch sear him across the back as he and Abigail flew off the porch and onto the dirt of the street. Reflexively, Ezra pulled her limp form closer to his body, feeling the silk of her hair against his face as he tried to land on his own back. His right shoulder absorbed the blow in one great numbing jolt, and he continued to roll until he had her pinned underneath the shelter of his body.
When they landed, time un-froze, broke into chaos.
One man, seeing Vin’s raised rifle, had acted instinctively, bringing his own to bear on the tracker. Vin saw the glint of light on the barrel, tried to step out of the way and stepped into the flames that had been ignited by the torch fetching up against the office’s doorframe, flames that now licked greedily across the dry wood of the porch, up Tanner’s leg.
Reflexively, Vin jerked away from the fire and at almost the same instant felt the sharp, burning pain of a bullet ripping through the muscles of his left shoulder. A cry, strangled by pain and rising smoke, broke from his lips as he fell to the floor, rifle falling from limp fingers. Through the haze of pain, Vin saw the flames creeping closer, felt their heat caress his face. He took a deep breath to steel himself against the agony he could already feel as the fire took possession of his leg, as hot blood poured out of the bullet hole. The deep breath brought nothing to his lungs but smoke; he coughed once and passed out.
Abigail cried out as Vin’s agony stabbed through her mind. "Ezra! Ezra, oh Mother... Ezra... Vin..." She felt Ezra’s weight shift on her; a firm hand pulled her to her feet and forced her behind Ezra’s back.
"We’ll take care of him, Ms. Gentry," Ezra said softly, confidently, knowing what his friends would do.
She could see then, the reason for his faith; Nathan and Josiah came barrelling through the flames and into open air. They did not run off of the porch to join the terrified, milling crowd that had forgotten about her in the rising heat of the conflagration; Sanchez stopped to scoop up the limp body of Vin Tanner, even though the flames pressed close about him, and only then did he continue to break through the crowd and gallop over to a water trough to douse his friend’s burns. Nathan kept close beside him, beating out the flames engulfing Tanner’s leg with the shirt he had pulled off his own back.
"Dammit, get a bucket brigade started!"
"The
wages of sin is death!" shouted Sanchez, his old voice still echoing with
the tones of the pulpit, of hellfire and damnation. "This woman has
consorted with a creature of the pit, a demon from the bosom of hell! Consign
her to the fire! Take her!"
Ezra backed up, one arm keeping Abigail behind the shield of his body, praying
that one of the seven would see him and his predicament.
Buck
and
Seeing their leader fall, the crowd halted.
"Leave her alone, for the love of God!" shouted Ezra, praying that Abigail would stay behind him this time.
The crowd paused in its advance, wavering.
"We all want peace," he continued, softening his voice a little, but still firm. "Ms. Gentry has given none of you reason to fear her- your fears came from your own supersitions, grew by the gossip travelers bring. She will be going home unmolested, as Mr. Larabee has previously declared. Is this understood?"
The crowd seemed to turn toward Isaiah Sanchez for direction, but although the old man had regained his feet, he wove about unsteadily and with no zealous light burning in his eyes. His mouth worked as if to say something, but closed without his uttering a word.
"Damn it!" Larabee shouted, striding up to stand next to Ezra and confront the huddled group, "This’ll burn the whole town down if we don’t get it out! If you’re not on the line in ten seconds, you’ll be jailed for arson." His glare took in the eight or nine men and women assembled before him, unafraid of the axes and pitchforks they held.
Obediently,
the crowd dispersed, some running and some walking to find their places. Isaiah
Sanchez remained, staring vacantly.
"Yeah... I mean, yes, Mr. Larabee," Ezra replied.
"That...
that was damn gutsy of ya,"
"Hm... well, I am full of surprises, Mr. Larabee," Ezra
said with as much of his old panache as he could muster.
All the shouts and orders, cries and panicked screams seemed to fade as Ezra turned to face Abigail.
"A dragon?" he asked.
She smiled shyly, as if embarrassed at being caught out. "That’s Sgeulaiche," she said, sounding strangely young for all the wisdom in her eyes. "I’ve lived with him for a while. He’s a companion of sorts... and he’s the one responsible for the destruction of your stage coach," she added after a moment.
Ezra grinned. "We had expected a cougar, or some other kind of wild beast," he remarked. "Mr. Tanner, skilled at reading the tracks in the clouds as he is, did not figure on a dragon as being one of the possible culprits."
Abigail ducked her head. "He did it without my knowledge... I will make sure he apologizes, if you wish."
"Ms. Gentry, I could not possibly imagine a dragon apologizing to me," Ezra told her, wondering at how easy he was being with her; the uncertainty, the defensiveness of their earlier conversation at her home had melted away, had faded just as the fire before them did under the assault of water.
"To be honest," Abigail said, "Neither can I."
Words had passed for the time being, and they stood together silently but not uncomfortably, watching the fire die down.
"All
of you go home,"
The crowd slowly broke apart, drifting through the smoke and the night back to their homes or the boarding house. A silence hung over them as they made their ways back indoors, a heavy silence that would remain unbroken for the rest of the night.
"How’s
he doin’?"
"Bullet
went straight through his shoulder," Nathan reported. "He also
inhaled a lot of smoke from bein’ stuck right near
the source of the fire, an’ his left leg got burnt pretty bad- should heal,
though. If you can get Buck an’ J.D. over here, I can get Vin up to the
clinic."
"Let’s go," Nathan ordered, leading the way to the clinic. Buck and J.D. followed closely, Buck supporting Vin’s shoulders and J.D. carefully holding the tracker up by his thighs. Buck winced when the toe of Vin’s boot caught Josiah’s uncle across the shoulder, but when he looked back, he saw no sign from the old man that the contact had been felt.
"C’mon, Uncle Isaiah," Josiah whispered to the old, old man. "Let’s get you to the hotel." The old man nodded, his eyes vacant. Spittle dripped down his lips as Josiah led him away. "We’ll get you off on the stage tomorrow- there’s one coming through from Bitter Creek," Josiah continued, keeping his voice low as if to soothe an upset child; the emptiness in Isaiah’s eyes led him to think that perhaps he spoke to a child after all. "I’m sure Aunt Edith would be more than happy to take you in for a bit."
"Aunt Edith," Isaiah Sanchez murmured. "Auntie Edith..." He leaned heavily against Josiah, not seeing the beautiful young woman who he’d just now tried to kill as he walked by her.
"It’s over," Abigail said hoarsely to Isaiah Sanchez’s bent and quivering back, standing by Ezra, who hovered over her protectively; she turned her face into Ezra’s coat and murmured, as if in disbelief, "It’s all over."
A lone tear trickled down the soot that stained her face, and Ezra brushed it away.
EPILOGUE
Ezra stood with her near dawn and near the fringes of the forest, feeling awkward and ridiculously... young... for the first time in a long time. Sgeulaiche curled himself comfortably about Abigail’s shoulder, and Ezra wondered if he ever would have gotten used to the sight of a real, live dragon. She must have seen the bemusement on his face, because she laughed gently to break the grip of the moment.
"I must thank you," she said at last, "for aiding me in town. It... it means a great deal to me, that you would be willing to sacrifice yourself, the image of yourself, in the eyes of your fellows."
"Yes, well..." Ezra had never been entirely comfortable with praise for his coming to aid anyone in distress, and it showed, to his embarrassment. "It was the least I could do, for it strikes me as truly barbaric that a man could level such spurious charges at a lady such as you, and even more barbaric that people would choose to believe them."
"Humans will always do so," she told him, "they have always done so. Eyes can only see what they wish to, whether it be for good or evil."
"They should be made to see more," he countered, more roughly than he’d intended.
"It is not something I can change," Abigail replied softly. "Would that it were, but it is not. In light of that, perhaps, your sacrifice is greater and warrants my deepest thanks. Ask it of me, Ezra Standish, and you will receive it."
"Ah, I couldn’t..." The refusal trailed off under the weight of her gaze.
"I am not long for this world," she said, and he felt pain at her words. "Ask it of me, and you will receive it," she repeated.
"I can’t," he replied, and meant it. He knew the one thing he desperately wanted: a reassurance that this new magic would not leave him, that he would not be consigned once more to the mundane and the ordinary, that he could yet live with the scintillant beauty he’d come, finally, to see- something he feared deeply that he could not live without. For the past thirty-four years, he’d lived blissfully unaware and uncaring of such things.
Now, now... he didn’t know if he could live without it.
"When I told you that your painting spoke to a deeper truth of you," Abigail began slowly, as if speaking to a young child, "I knew that this truth would never alter itself; it writes itself in stone on your soul- I could not change it if I had wanted to. There is yet another truth in you, if you can discover it. That will be my gift, Ezra Standish, this truth."
"Thank
you," he said honestly. "But if I may ask, how will I know this truth
when I see it?"
"You will know it," she replied, and turned to leave. She did not
look back, but Sgeulaiche did, black eyes shining
with knowing and maybe a little mockery.
She did not look back save at the end, as the forest loomed around her and mists gathered at her side, plucking at her substance and threatening to make her inchoate, a drifting form that would retain only the shadow-memory of human shape. She did, then, look back to where Ezra Standish waited, and waved once, twice, three times.
"Wait!" shouted Ezra, taking two involuntary steps closer to the forest. "Will I ever see you again?"
Again, she smiled, and he could see its brightness even through the massing fog. "Your gift is the answer to that question," she answered, and with that, she was gone.
Magic had not yet left the world entirely, for she had yet one more task at hand. She did it willingly and gladly, for her kind would always honor obligation- and she had an obligation to him, he who had believed in her alongside the other. One last time, she bestirred herself from the fog of her wood, cloaked in twilight and mist, and traveled to him.
Her heart ached to see him lying on the bed, beaten and bruised with the poison of iron in him still. She wished for a healing touch, but such things lay beyond her now. She could hope to comfort him with her presence, for she sensed that his need of her reached deeply, as it ever had. It hurt her that she could not always be with him save in memory, but her nature bound her just as his nature bound him, and memory would have to suffice.
For a moment she watched, a dark-haired sentinel, clad in the shining raiment of her kind. Vin opened his eyes then, slowly becoming aware of her, the blueness of his gaze dazzling and vacant with pain and laudanum. Both things disappeared, though, as he saw her and struggled to sit up. She placed a firm hand on his shoulder, forestalling his attempts, and he slumped weakly back onto the pillow.
Another
moment they stood thus, she smiling gently down on him and he gazing up at her,
drinking in her beauty and the grace of her. She knew his heart, knew that he
did not love her as a man would love a woman, but that he gave her something
deeper. A faith, strong and true, despite his nature maybe as it was with Ezra
Standish, but all the more perfect for it.
But time drew short, and actions were needed now.
She bent over him and kissed his forehead, just like his mother used to do before he fell asleep. One of so few memories, that one; he could scarcely remember it, but the warm pressure of her lips on his skin brought it back so strong he thought he’d cry.
"I have given your friend a gift," Abigail said softly, stroking Vin’s face. He remembered his mother doing that, too. "He doesn’t yet know it, but I have rewarded him. If there is something you desire, Vin Tanner, ask it."
He gazed at her mutely, unable to speak. She saw the plea though, shining in those eyes that reminded her so of Kieran; she wondered where he was. Wordlessly, he gave his request and wordlessly she granted it, once more brushing his forehead with her lips. The brightness of her almost blinded him, and he had to close his eyes against that radiance.
When
he opened them, she was gone. A sob choked him, a wordless cry of loss. They
racked him, shaking his shoulders and making the bullet wound hurt, but he paid
the pain no attention; it dwindled, in the face of the pain of losing her.
Slowly, so slowly, he realized he would yet have memories of her and the gift
he’d asked, and with the realization, sleep came along with peace.
Vin woke, stiff and sore, his body a mass of myriad aches and pains. Nathan sat
nearby, mixing yucca and herbal teas. Seeing his patient finally awake,
"Hey, Vin.. how are ya?" he asked.
"Fine," Vin responded flatly. "Where’s Ezra?"
"Think he’s sleepin’, Vin," Nathan told him. "What d’ ya need him for?"
"Mr. Jackson, I am grievously offended that you would think I am so slothful as to lie abed on a day so glorious as this." The voice, shaded by exhaustion, still managed to ring out brightly.
Nathan glanced at the small clock that hung on the opposite clinic wall. "Ez... it’s nine in the morning," Jackson managed to say, darting an amazed and curious glance at his friend, who usually considered nine in the morning to be, in the gambler’s own words, an ‘unholy hour to be awake.’
"Yes, well, consider this a one-time event. Please do not think that I am turning over a new leaf, or entertain any other similar sentiments," Ezra said dismissively, striding over to physician and patient. He had something wrapped in paper carried underneath his arm; he saw Vin trying to see what it was and put the package behind his back. "And please do not attempt to ascertain the contents of this package, Mr. Tanner," he added.
"He wouldn’t think of it, Ez," Nathan assured him, and Standish grinned.
"If you have finished torturing Mr. Tanner for the present, would it be permissible for me to have a word with him in private?"
"Sure,
Ezra,"
When the healer’s footsteps had vanished, Ezra sat down and propped the package on his knees. Vin had a flash of premonition- somehow he knew what lay hidden under the swathing of butcher paper.
"I was returning from escorting Ms. Gentry to the forests," Ezra said with uncharacteristic softness, "and I stopped at your wagon on my way. Just to get clean clothes for you- or what you define as clean clothes, at any rate."
"Get to the point, Ez," rasped Vin, favoring the jibe with a roll of his eys..
"Yes, yes," Ezra replied, unbothered by Vin’s impatience. He paused and then: "I saw this under the driver’s seat. I believe that she wanted you to have it." With that, he pulled the loose paper wrapping off the painting; it remained nothing more than a meaningless jumble of color to him, but he knew what Vin saw.
A slow, wondering smile spread across Vin’s face, the blue eyes lighting up as his fingers traced the contours of a face only the tracker could see. Ezra felt a smile of his own spreading across his face; Vin’s eyes flicked up to him and he asked, "You get your paintin’?"
In that instant, Ezra had his secret answer.
"Will I ever see you again?"
"Your gift is the answer to that question."
"No... no I don’t," he said, marveling a little at how dense he’d been. "but it’s not important. I’ll remember it."
He didn’t have to see her again, Ezra realized. The painting that Vin held... there was magic in it for the tracker, just as some bit of mystery infused itself into everything. Magic remained, Ezra thought, even though she had left.
Ezra handed the canvas to Vin and, seeing something in his friend’s face, left Vin alone, stepping out of the room and shutting the door soundlessly behind him, wanting to be alone with his thoughts as well.
Vin sat in the room alone, staring at the painting before him, the picture of the angel and her brown hair, the blue eyes that gazed on him so lovingly, and the great pale sweep of ivory wings that carried her- and him- to Heaven.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT
This is just an addendum to let you know some of the sources for this story, particularly with regards to the goddesses I used as parts of Abigail’s background, just in case you’re curious. There are also a few books I referenced for various myths. Check them out- they’re pretty cool.
The
Wood Maiden: Icelandic folk story
The Girl Who Created the Milky Way: South African myth
--Ragan, K. Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters. WW Norton
& Co.: NYC. 1998.
Big Raven’s Wife: Maritime Chukchee Indian
creation myth
-- Norman, H. Northern Tales. Pantheon Books: NYC. 1990.
CELTIC/BRITISH
GODDESSES
Agrona- old British goddess; later gave her name to
Aeron, a god of war.
Morrigan- sometimes called the Morrigan
with various spellings; a war goddess.
Rhiannon- aids those who have been wrongfully accused or bear heavy responsibilty.
-- Matthews, J. The Celtic Shaman. Element Books: Shaftesbury, Dorset:
1991.
FURTHER
READING
The Origin and History of Consciousness, Erich Neumann
A Dictionary of Symbols, J.E. Cirlot
The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser